Rich Paul, the longtime agent of LeBron James, knows a thing or 30 about high-end NBA talent. He not only sees plenty of it in Minnesota Timberwolves superstar Anthony Edwards, but Paul believes Edwards has best-in-the-league abilities—like right this second.
"I think that Anthony Edwards is the best player in our league today," Paul said on the Game Over podcast. "... You can't watch a game on any given night against anybody and look at that game and say, 'Oh, that person is better than Anthony Edwards.'"
It's refreshingly high praise for a star who isn't included often enough in the-best-of-the-best discussions. But is the take justified? Well, as much as the boldness is appreciated, it's probably a generous read on Edwards' league-wide ranking.
Anthony Edwards is a great player, but best-in-the-league might be generous.
Part of the secret sauce behind the indefinite shelf life of the best-on-the-planet debate is that its answer is ultimately subjective. Everyone has their own measure for greatness, so of course we're not going to all calculate our way to the same conclusions.
And if you're a fan of intangibles, then you're probably a big fan of Edwards. As Paul praised profusely, Edwards is a two-way contributor, a relentless competitor, and a big-stage performer. He's also either fortunate enough to avoid the injury bug or tough enough to push his way through nagging stuff that might sideline his contemporaries for a week.
If numbers play a big part of your evaluation process, though, then he almost certainly isn't sitting atop of your hoops-world hierarchy. Which, yes, does feel silly to say about someone averaging 29.3 points, 5.2 rebounds, 3.7 assists, and 3.4 three-pointers.
It's just that a conversation like this requires absurdly high standards and a whole lot of nitpicking. (Or it does for my preferred method of evaluation, at least.) And once you start weighing things like across-the-board impact and advanced analytics, that's when Edwards has trouble fending off the more common responses to the best-in-basketball question.
Like Nikola Jokic, who has three MVP awards to his name and this season's best estimated plus/minus, per Dunks & Threes. Or reigning MVP and current win shares leader Shai Gilgeous-Alexander. Or current scoring leader and nightly triple-double threat Luka Doncic.
Look, would you take any of those players in a 1-on-1 tournament against Edwards? Maybe not. But that's not really what this exercise is about. (Unless, of course, that's how you define No. 1 spot greatness.) For me, it's about trying to quantify greatness, and Edwards doesn't quite get there to justify the take. Pick your preferred all-encompassing metric, and there's a good chance you won't find him in the top-10.
That doesn't make Paul's take inaccurate. If I had to guess, I'd wager there are a slew of Wolves fans who wholeheartedly agree with it. And in their own way, they're all right. Groupthink may not agree, but these debates never end in universal agreement.
So, even if it's a touch generous in my eyes, that doesn't matter. Paul said what he said, and Edwards has earned that kind of belief.