We’re two weeks into the season, and the Minnesota Timberwolves are the juggernaut we all thought they could be. They’re destroying bad teams and playing great team basketball. As a result, they’re making fans happy, and nobody has felt any anxiety for the rest of their lives. The end.
Oh wait, they’re 4-4 with losses to the San Antonio Spurs and the Utah Jazz. Minnesota has the 8th worst offense in the NBA, a wonky at-best fit between their two All-Star bigs in Karl-Anthony Towns and Rudy Gobert, and their next game is against the undefeated Milwaukee Bucks. Unfortunately, it’s a position that Timberwolves fans know all too well. That sad space between competence and an early-season trainwreck is where we thrive as a people. While the Wolves haven’t been a total disaster eight games into the season, they’ve been maddeningly inconsistent, led in instability by their third-year messiah, Anthony Edwards.
The man primed to make a third-year leap is one of Minnesota’s bright spots in the fleeting moments of aesthetically-pleasing basketball being played inside the confines of the Target Center. But he’s also one of the biggest culprits when it comes to the issues that have kept the Timberwolves’ ascent in the Western Conference standings stuck in the late autumn Minnesota mud.
In his four “good” games, the Ant-Man is averaging almost 31 points, 5.8 rebounds, and four assists per game on 56/44/61 shooting. As a result, the Wolves are 3-1. However, during his four “bad’ games, Edwards’ numbers drop to 15.5 points, 6.5 rebounds, and four assists. In those games, he’s shooting a dismal 31 percent from the field and 28.5 percent from three. As a result, the Timberwolves are 1-3. Edwards is playing at a first-team All-NBA level when he’s on, and San Diego State on an aircraft carrier level bad on his off nights.
It’s led to the team playing their usual yo-yo style of basketball with a few good games and a few good quarters followed by disastrous third quarters and some stupid losses. The Timberwolves are scoring 113.9 points per 100 possessions and giving up 107.6 points per 100 in their four wins. However, their offensive rating drops to 107.7, and their defensive rating rises to 110.4 in their four losses. The Wolves hold a plus-15 net rating in the first quarter, minus-5.2 in the second, an insane minus-25.8, and an equally crazy plus-24.9 in the fourth. It’s a team that hasn’t quite figured out what it wants to be.
A lot of that can be billed to Minnesota’s ultra-confidant leader, who talks the talk but has yet to walk the walk consistently.
Ant’s always been a streaky player throughout his first two years, and that’s perfectly fine for a player who just turned 21. Development isn’t always linear, but for a guy who was so confident coming into this season and has MVP aspirations in the future, it’s a little reminiscent of waiting every year for the Andrew Wiggins leap that never came. Nobody is saying Edwards is the next Wiggins, but he has seemingly picked out his spot in the corner more often than usual in the season’s first two weeks.
He’s also been less explosive than the human highlight reel Edwards was in his first two seasons. The man who did this to Yuta Watanabe, hasn’t recorded a single dunk this season. He had 63 dunks last year and 70 during his shortened rookie season. Edwards gave a believable explanation for his lack of early season dunks citing a clogged lane for his inability to finish a dunk. Still, it could also be a change in his body over the offseason that’s keeping him grounded.
Edwards entered training camp noticeably bigger this season than in the past. He and his team claimed he’s been hitting the gym and put on ten pounds of lean muscle in the offseason. But his listed weight ballooned as high as 239-pounds, higher than Towns’ weight after a throat infection sent KAT to the hospital before training camp. The offseason weight gain, plus a curious statement from Towns saying he needs to be better at teaching Ant how to take care of his body, makes one think that it’s possible Edwards came into camp overweight and must now play himself into shape. Therefore, is his production on the court suffering in the meantime?
Whatever the issues, Edwards has shown he can be one of the best players in this league when he’s locked in. But the next step in his journey to superstardom is to play up to his fantastic abilities more often than he has an off-night. Every player has room to improve, but Edwards has the tools. He just has to use them and cut out the mistakes and the lack of effort when things aren’t going his way. Only then will he and the Wolves be able to take the proverbial leap together. Only then can Ant finally take the reins as this team’s unquestioned alpha.
