The Minnesota Timberwolves just completed arguably their most successful season in franchise history. Anthony Edwards continued to elevate his game, and despite being a relative youngster, put the organization on his back.
The 22-year-old Edwards was brilliant all season, leading the Wolves to a No. 3 seed in the Western Conference playoff bracket, but it was his play during the first couple rounds of the playoffs that really elevated his NBA rep to another level.
Minnesota Timberwolves’ Anthony Edwards named top-12 NBA talent
The Athletic has been running their NBA Player Tiers project for five seasons now, and having that level of history allows fans an opportunity to see the evolution of a player. The top 125 players are all named, and then they are sorted into one of five different tiers.
Enter Anthony Edwards, who checks in as the 12th best player on the list, but more importantly, slotting into their Tier 2B of NBA players. Those listed in Tier 2B with Ant include Jimmy Butler, Devin Booker, Victor Wembanyama and Jalen Brunson.
“Meanwhile, Edwards made a leap, if not quite “The Leap,” into the game’s elite this season, driving the Timberwolves to a top-four record and their second-ever conference finals. All while being recognized as the best player across the first two playoff rounds by general acclaim. Like so many in their first deep postseason run, Edwards discovered some of his current limits in the Western Conference finals against Dallas with the Mavericks interior defense in particular bamboozling the young Minnesota star. If his career follows the pattern of others, he will learn from that experience and continue to rise up the league’s pyramid.” Seth Partnow – The Athletic
The author of the rankings, and The Athletic’s NBA analytics analyst, Seth Partnow, describes Tier 2 as, “the players who are All-Star shoo-ins and All-NBA contenders… This is the level where everyone listed could be the best player on a title team next year.”
How far can Minnesota Timberwolves Anthony Edwards climb?
Ant made his debut on The Athletic’s player tier project back in July, 2021, in the ‘5A Tier’. He lept into Tier 3 the next summer (July ’22), where he remained as of August 2023, before finally cracking Tier 2 this summer.
Expect Anthony Edwards’ superstar to grow even larger over the next couple of months, as he and Team USA head to Paris for the 2024 Summer Olympics. Some of the names who will be playing alongside him will include LeBron James, Kevin Durant, Steph Curry and his wannabe signature shoe rival, Jayson Tatum. In other words. most of the best players in the world.
If head coach Chris Finch and the Minnesota Timberwolves want to take that next step next season, and reach the NBA Finals for the first time in franchise history, it will largely be on the shoulders of their 22-year-old superstar (who will be a wise old 23 by then).
By this time next year, after his run with Team USA and another season under his belt leading the MN Timberwolves, it’s not that crazy to think he could jump all 11 players ahead of him on The Athletic’s list when the 2025 edition drops.
Discussion about this post