Anthony Edwards has spent the last five years of his career living up to his reputation as the top overall pick. His search to justify the hype, and perhaps his ambitions more than anything, have led to the Minnesota Timberwolves reaching consecutive Western Conference Finals for the first time in their history. Unfortunately for him and the Timberwolves, that’s where their surge has found its abrupt end.
Advertisement
This season saw the NBA champions Oklahoma City Thunder humble them in 5 games, or as Edwards put it himself, “They put belt to a**. I can’t be mad at that.” But he sure is disappointed since the season before that, the Timberwolves, after a stunning season, were eliminated in Game 5 of the WCF finals against the Dallas Mavericks.
Not one to make a habit of losing out on silverware, the ‘Ant-Man’ now claims he’s fired up for the next season and claimed that this would be the first time in two years that he would have a chance to work on his game.
In the epilogue of his docuseries, Year Five, Edwards addressed the failures of the season, but maintains that while the loss to OKC was disappointing, ‘hurt’ wouldn’t be the right way to describe how he felt.
“I don’t know why people think it would hurt. Hurt is a terrible word to use. I am good,” he asserted, adding, “Like I said, we tried last year, we couldn’t get it. We tried again this year. We are going to try again next year.”
While the montage of him going for runs, smiling, and dapping up Steph Curry to calm inspirational music as credits roll in does make for a great epilogue, it does little to change the Timberwolves’ circumstances.
But what does inspire hope is Edwards’ willingness to admit where it went wrong for them this season.
Earlier this month, after their loss to OKC, he had pointed out that the team simply didn’t come together. “We never clicked altogether as a team in this series. Not even one game. I think that was the main thing. Like, in the last two series, we were all clicking at one time, making shots and stuff. We weren’t clicking at one time here”.
But at 23, Edwards is already proving to be a game-changer for the Timberwolves, setting a franchise single-season three-point record with 244 triples in 2024-25, while also breaking their record for playoff wins, and being named to the All-NBA second team.
So, even with the hard lessons learnt from missing out on the finals for the last couple of seasons, he knows there are going to be more opportunities to cement his legacy and then some.
“I mean, it’s exciting for me. I am 23, I get to do it a whole bunch of times,” he continued, promising to work his “but off this summer“. “Nobody’s going to work harder than me this summer, I will tell you that much,” Edwards promised.
He will, however, hope that the Timberwolves can get it together and go for broke as a team next season.
