Anthony Edwards may be sidelined, but he’s still very much in the middle of everything the Minnesota Timberwolves are doing right now.
The team was hit hard when word came down that Edwards would miss at least two months after arthroscopic surgery on his right knee. Minnesota had opened the season 3-1, and the immediate questions were obvious: what would the Wolves look like without him, and what would this mean for the rest of the season and beyond?
Three weeks later, those concerns look a lot smaller. The Timberwolves are 6-2 without Edwards in the lineup, the offense has settled in with LaMelo Ball leading the way, and Minnesota sits first in both defensive and net rating in the NBA.
Edwards hasn’t been able to help on the floor yet, but he’s still around the team constantly. He’s back at the practice facility and at Target Center during home games as he works through rehab.
He was there for Sunday’s 115-100 win over the Utah Jazz, laughing and joking with teammates in the training room. At the practices that followed, he was crutching around the facility.
Anthony Edwards isn’t ready to play. But he can crutch out there and talk some smack with the best of them. pic.twitter.com/1AhqzuA86D
On game nights, Edwards isn’t sitting on the bench. Instead, he watches much of the action from inside the Wolves’ player tunnel behind the bench, staying close without being in the way.
And when Minnesota is on the road, he’s still plugged in. A big part of his presence shows up in the team’s group chat, where he keeps texting, encouraging, and challenging teammates about what needs to improve.
“Even though he’s not here, he’s here,” Jaylen Clark explained. “In the group chat, he texts his messages before games, his own little scouting report...
He’ll go person by person. Tell exactly what he wants, what he needs out of everybody.”
That kind of connection has been a big part of what’s made this group feel different from some of the Wolves teams of the past few seasons. The players keep talking about how well they get along and how much they enjoy being around each other, and Edwards is at the center of that.
“Ant is the best teammate to have; he supports you through everything,” Terrence Shannon Jr. said. “He’s going to laugh with you, make jokes, all the above.
Just everything he knows about a player going into a game, he’ll tell us. He’ll tell us about damn near every player on the roster.
It’s really good for real.”
That same theme has come up repeatedly as Minnesota has surged through the opening stretch of the season. After the team’s 39-point rout of the Dallas Mavericks, Bones Hyland pointed straight to the locker room atmosphere.
“I think it starts in the locker room; I’m not gonna lie,” Hyland stated after the team’s 39-point rout of the Dallas Mavericks. “I think winning starts in the locker room.
The high-energy vibes. We’re just all on one accord.
Ant being in the locker room after the games, in practices, even in the locker room, I think are juices is always high, that translates to winning, for sure.”
Edwards could have easily stepped back and spent this time focused only on rehab. That hasn’t been his approach. He’s stayed engaged, stayed vocal, and stayed tuned in to what his teammates need from him emotionally.
That part of his game has only become more obvious since the injury. Even without playing, Edwards is showing the kind of leadership that can shape a team now and later, once he’s back on the court.
His rise as the voice of the locker room became even more important when the Timberwolves traded Karl-Anthony Towns on the eve of training camp in 2024. Towns had been the team’s primary vocal leader before that, and Edwards was suddenly pushed into that role while still being the clear best player on the roster.
At first, that wasn’t exactly comfortable territory for him. But over time, he’s grown into it, and Finch has noticed.
“It’s grown in just so many ways,” Chris Finch shared about Edwards’ leadership. “He’s found his voice in the last two seasons, and then he’s found the right messaging within that.
I think he realizes that leadership comes with the responsibility of holding yourself accountable to a different standard. I saw that all through training camp and in the first week of the season.”
Edwards has embraced that responsibility. From the team’s trip to Paris to visit Rudy Gobert this summer to the offseason workouts and training camp, he’s helped set the tone for what this group wants to be. He’s also done it while remaining one of the most charismatic and easygoing players in the room.
“He loves his team,” Finch said. “His personality is still infused through the team, there’s no doubt about it.”
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