During All-Star week, Anthony Edwards made it clear that he doesn’t want to be the face of the league.
“I’m capable of being that guy,” Edwards told NBA TV. “But I don’t want to be that guy. … I want to be the guy to just show up and hoop and just kill dudes and go home.”
Edwards’ reticence seems counterintuitive, given his big personality. People have compared him to Michael Jordan. Last February, Vanity Fair suggested that Edwards could be the face of the league. However, Edwards hasn’t wanted to take the mantle from LeBron James and Stephen Curry and dismissed the Jordan comparisons.
When ESPN’s Dave McMenamin asked Edwards if he considers himself a top candidate for the face of the league, Edwards responded, “Not really.”
“That’s what they’ve got Wemby for.”
Don’t players always leave places like Minnesota to chase fame and fortune in Los Angeles, Miami, or New York?
James famously left Cleveland to pursue a championship in Miami, then returned to his hometown only to finish his career in Los Angeles. He’s been famous since Sports Illustrated put him on the cover at age 16, and he’s been the face of the league since his first run with the Cleveland Cavaliers.
Still, James doesn’t blame Edwards for declining the opportunity to take over for him once he retires.
“I feel Ant,” James said after the Los Angeles Lakers beat Minnesota on Thursday night. “I completely understand. There’s just weird energy when it comes to that.
“Why do you want to be the face of the league when all the people that cover our game and talk about our game on a day-to-day basis s— on everybody?”
James has been through it all. Cavs fans naturally didn’t love “The Decision.” People still joke about him going on stage with Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh and announcing they’d win seven championships in Miami, where he won two. Everyone from Charles Barkley to George Karl has criticized him for setting his son up to fail.
Some criticism was warranted, given that James piled on Cleveland before winning a championship there. However, that kind of scrutiny would be a change for Edwards, who’s almost universally beloved. Players enter the league polished, and stars make fewer public mistakes than they did in the past.
Meanwhile, Edwards speaks his mind. He’s often funny, like when he called Mike Conley “old as f—” after winning Game 4 of the Western Conference Finals in Dallas last year. Other times, Edwards is defiant, like when he said, “We’ll be back” after the Dallas Mavericks eliminated them. However, he’s almost always upbeat.
“I never think the sky is falling,” he said during last year’s playoffs. “I’m always positive, always positive. I’ve been through the worst, so the sky is never falling for me.”
Edwards’ appeal is that he doesn’t let the weight of the world bring him down. The money he’s earned in his career gives him freedom, as does his attitude. Edwards dunks in a way that will make you believe man can fly. He instinctively knows how to keep the sky from closing in on him.
But while he has strong emotional intelligence, it doesn’t always translate to the basketball court. On Thursday, the officials gave Edwards his 15th and 16th technical fouls and ejected him from the game while the Wolves mounted a comeback in L.A.
Edwards ultimately hurt his team because he couldn’t play in crunch time against the Lakers or the Utah Jazz the next night.
“He’s got to be better,” Chris Finch said. “He’s had too many outbursts. I think a lot of them are deserved. [The referees will] gonna miss some calls from time to time for sure, so he’s got to be better, and we’ve been talking to him about it. So it’s on him.”
NBA officiating is inconsistent, and Edwards often doesn’t get calls because he doesn’t flop. Still, his emotional intelligence fails him in his communication with the refs. He served a one-game suspension in Utah because he accrued 16 technical fouls, and the league will suspend him one game for every two technical fouls he receives during the regular season.
“We’ve got a lot of guys who get emotional when things don’t go the right way, individually, and it can hurt our team as a whole,” Conley said after the Lakers game. “We have to be better. Ant has to be better. He knows that.”
On Thursday, crew chief James Williams said the officials issued Edwards the second tech for “directing profanity toward a game official.”
People laughed when Edwards told the locker room staffers at Ball Arena, “I’ll see y’all motherf—ers for Game 7” after the Denver Nuggets beat Minnesota in Game 5. However, the refs find it a little less funny when he directs that word, or something similar, at them when Edwards thinks an opponent fouled him.
Edwards must be respectful towards the refs, but it feels like the NBA is clipping his wings. Edwards still doesn’t get a superstar whistle, and they’ve fined and suspended him for speaking his mind. Ironically, he’s also on the verge of becoming the face of the league.
With that would come more scrutiny. People will say he swears too much and needs to be more polished. Aside from his play, the best thing about Edwards is he’s unpolished. He wears a beater and an Atlanta Braves cap in a league full of players in designer clothes.
Fortunately, Edwards is more interested in winning than fame. He won’t leave Minnesota to become the face of the league. Edwards will stay so long as he believes the Wolves can contend. The NBA’s gilded cage will never tempt Edwards.
