Anthony Edwards is having another good season.
Despite all the consternation about his 3-point rate, lack of highlight reel dunks, post-game press conferences, and the general uneasy vibe around the team, Ant is still an ascendant superstar in the NBA. The 2024-25 Minnesota Timberwolves are 21-19, eighth in the West, and have little in common with last year’s 56-win squad that made the Western Conference Finals.
Karl-Anthony Towns is out, and Julius Randle and Donte DiVincenzo are in. Still, Ant is putting up elite numbers for a 23-year-old. The gold medalist is averaging 25.9 points, 5.7 rebounds, and 4.2 assists per game on 42.3 3-point shooting, a career-best percentage. He’s going to his third-straight All-Star game, on the edge of another All-NBA nod, and is still one of the players the NBA should be building their global marketing campaign around for the next 15 years.
The Timberwolves have won four of their last six games because Ant is playing the best basketball of his fifth NBA season. Including his 53-point explosion in Minnesota’s otherwise flaccid loss to the Detroit Pistons, Edwards is averaging 32.4 points, 6.3 rebounds, and 5.0 assists per contest while upping his 3-point percentage to 48.0 percent.
Edwards is shooting 10.7 3s per game during the offensive surge, but he’s finally taking the advice every fan with an eighth-grade basketball reading level has been screaming about for three months. Edwards remembered that he was 6’4”, 225 lbs, and one of the 10 greatest athletes on Planet Earth, and he decided to use those gifts to attack the basket.
Last year, Edwards continuously imposed his physical dominance over opponents standing between him and the rim. He ranked 14th in the NBA with 14.6 drives per game and scored 10.7 points off those drives, sixth in the league. To start his fifth campaign, Edwards only averaged 12.6 drives per game across his first 33 games of the season and dropped to 22nd in scoring off of drives with 7.4 points per game.
Ant scored an anemic 15 points on 16 listless shot attempts in a Jan. 2 loss to the Boston Celtics, which dropped the Wolves to 17-16. After that game, Ant decided to become more aggressive.
Since the loss to the Celtics, Edwards is driving 17.7 times per game and scoring 10.4 points off his drives, eighth in the NBA over that span. It hasn’t translated to a marked improvement in Minnesota’s offense. They are averaging 115.1 points per 100 possessions over the last seven games. The Wolves are 4-3, including backbreaking losses to the Pistons, Memphis Grizzlies, and Golden State Warriors during Ant’s offensive resurgence, and there are still a few obstacles in Ant’s path to total basketball domination.
Mainly, there are a lot of bodies in his way. With KAT gone and Randle shooting 34.9 percent, the lane is packed with defenders, all with one mission above all else.
Don’t let Edwards get to the rim.
Edwards has only shot 42.3 percent on his drives over the past seven games, down from 47.2 percent in his first 33 games and 53.8 percent last season with more spacing. Even more troubling, his turnover rate on drives has skyrocketed this season.
His 12.9 turnover percentage on drives since the calendar switched to 2025 is by far the highest of any frequent driver in the NBA. It’s almost double his turnover rate from October, November, and December — and all of last season. He had tidied up his handle before last season’s breakout but has seemingly studied at the Julius Randle school of dribbling up to your armpit and struggles when he has to get by an extra body or two.
The increased effort to get to the hoop has led to a rise in Edwards’ free-throw attempts. His 4.6 free throw attempts per game are the fewest since his second year in the association. Edwards is shooting 8.1 free throws per game since losing to the Celtics, and he’s making 89.5 percent of those freebies. Ant’s free-throw attempts on drives have increased from 2.1 per game to 3.4 per game, almost on par with Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, the best guard in the league at attacking the paint.
Anthony Edwards has become a true three-level scorer. As the league continues to skew toward the 3-point shot, he will be handsomely rewarded for continuing his development into one of the best 3-point shooters in the league. However, there will never be a substitute for strength, athleticism, and pure power of will in the NBA.
Edwards is attacking the basket more in 2025. Whether that will deliver the Timberwolves the wins fans expected going into the season remains to be seen. Still, an aggressive Edwards is a sight for sore eyes in this trying new year that’s only 16 days old.