From the year he entered the league, putting Yuta Watanabe on a poster before a month later exploding for a 42-point haul against the Suns, Anthony Edwards has always been special.
How special?
Special enough to warrant Minnesota using its first overall pick in the 2020 draft to select the Georgia guard, with the kind of tantalising combination of athleticism and playmaking to transform a franchise.
And that goes without even mentioning his personality which Tom Crean, Edwards’ coach at Georgia, described as “infectious”.
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“He’s a pied piper personality,” Crean told The Athletic in 2020.
“People gravitate to him. They want to be around him and people really want him to like them. It’s a tremendous aura for a 19-year-old.”
Some people have a quiet confidence in the way they go about things. Anthony Edwards is not one of them.
There is nothing quiet about the way he operates. Nothing quiet about the way he dunked on Watanabe as a rookie, or the way he trash talked Kevin Durant after hitting a 3-pointer over the Suns superstar as Minnesota won Game 1 and went on to sweep the Phoenix series.
Edwards averaged 31 points, 8.0 rebounds, 6.3 assists and 2.0 steals in that series and Durant said after Game 4 that the 22-year-old was his “favourite player to watch”.
“[He has] just grown so much since he came into the league,” added Durant.
“His love for the game shines bright. That’s one of the reasons I like him the most. Love everything about Ant.”
He is one of those players who makes it hard not to like them and now Edwards is rapidly rising towards superstardom after helping take Minnesota to the Western Conference Finals.
Like Edwards, there was nothing quiet about the way the Timberwolves took it to the defending champion Nuggets, claiming the opening two games on the road before obliterating Denver by 45 points in Game 6 and clinching the series with a historic second-half comeback.
While the basketball world has been so used to the likes of Durant, LeBron James and Steph Curry dominating the playoffs conversation, the Suns and Lakers were eliminated in the first round while the Warriors didn’t even make it out of the play-in tournament.
Even Milwaukee’s superstar duo Giannis Antetokounmpo and Damian Lillard are out of the picture after battling injuries in an opening round series defeat to Indiana.
The same goes for three-time MVP Nikola Jokic, leaving Edwards as one of the biggest names left in the postseason along with Dallas superstars Luka Doncic and Kyrie Irving, Celtics duo Jaylen Brown and Jayson Tatum and the much-improved Tyrese Haliburton.
But it seems like Edwards belongs in a separate category, probably along with Doncic and maybe one of either Brown or Tatum, depending on how the rest of the playoffs shake out, as the leading candidates to be the next face of the league.
Edwards in particular though seems purpose built for the role, with highlight-reel plays and an equally loud personality to match. Put simply, Anthony Edwards the player and person cuts through.
Want proof? According to the NBA, Edwards generated more than 100 million video views across the league’s social and digital platforms in the opening round of the playoffs.
That number was second behind only one player: LeBron James. Edwards had also gained the most Instagram followers among players since the start of the playoffs.
It wasn’t just the playoffs either, with Edwards finishing the regular season as the seventh most viewed player on NBA social media pages.
“He’s the face of the league,” teammate Karl-Anthony Towns said after Minnesota swept Phoenix.
“I’ve been saying that. He hate when I say it but it’s true.”
ESPN’s Brian Windhorst, meanwhile, said on NBA Today that Edwards is “the future of American basketball”.
“The thing that is so great about him is he plays both ends and he cares about both ends and he truly loves his teammates,” added Windhorst.
“He is not a conventional leader but he is an effective leader.”
That means taking responsibility when you don’t play as well because as much as a confident Anthony Edwards is an unstoppable Anthony Edwards, self-accountability is just as important.
It wasn’t like Edwards’ output of 19 points, six rebounds and six assists in the Game 3 loss to Denver was that bad either. He just has such high expectations of himself and what he is capable of.
“It’s on me,” Edwards said after that game.
“I’ll take the blame for this loss. I came out with no energy at all. I can’t afford to do that for my team. I let my team down, the fans down.”
This was a different side to the Edwards who appeared on ESPN’s NBA Today in January 2022 and was asked who is the hardest player to guard in the league.
“Myself because I’m unstoppable,” a confident Edwards replied.
Confident. Not cocky. There is a difference, according to the man himself, who later told Malika Andrews ahead of this year’s playoffs series that is the one thing people don’t understand about him and the way he goes about his game.
“A lot of people be calling me cocky,” he told Andrews.
“That’s the main thing. It’s not cocky, it’s not arrogance. I’m just a confident person. I just think I’m the best in everything that I do.”
And by the end of last season when championship-winning guard Bruce Brown was asked who the hardest player is to guard in the league, he mentioned Edwards’ name alongside Thunder superstar Shai Gilgeous-Alexander.
Nuggets coach Michael Malone, meanwhile, said ahead of Game 7 that Edwards had “proven to be unguardable”, with second-year bench player Christian Braun Denver’s best bet of trying to limit his effectiveness.
Edwards averaged 27.7 points throughout the series against Denver, scoring 43 points in Game 1 and 44 in Game 5, when he warned a Nuggets locker room staffer that he’d be back.
“I told them,” explained Edwards, “I said ‘I’ll see y’all motherf*****s for Game 7.’”
It is that fierce competitiveness, confidence and swagger that has people across the league, including Edwards’ own teammates, drawing parallels with Michael Jordan.
“I’ve never met a guy or been a teammate with a guy who believes more in himself than Anthony Edwards,” Mike Conley said on ‘Inside the NBA’ of Edwards, who reminds him of a “young Michael Jordan”.
Former teammate Patrick Beverley even made the comparison back in 2022 on J.J. Redick’s podcast, declaring Edwards “has a chance to be really special” in the NBA.
“If I say this, I know you guys are going to look at me like I’m crazy and I’m going to put all that pressure on that kid,” Beverley said at the time.
“But, I told him, ‘Man, you got a chance, man. You got a chance, brother, to be Michael Jordan. You really do. You really do.’
“I’ve been around a lot of them and the kid doesn’t indulge in anything negative — just all positivity, all video games. His talent level, his skill level, it’s crazy. He has a chance to be really special. Really special in this league.”
Jordan himself also called Edwards “special” after Game 1 against the Suns, according to Stephen A. Smith.
Edwards has consistently dismissed the comparisons, telling FOX Sports he can’t be compared to somebody of Jordan’s calibre.
“I want it to stop,” Edwards said. “He’s the greatest of all time. I can’t be compared to him.”
Meanwhile, in that sit-down interview with Andrews before the playoffs, Edwards was asked the same question and said he doesn’t want to be known as “the next Michael Jordan”.
Instead, he would prefer to be “the first Anthony Edwards”. In other words, he just wants to be himself and that is what makes Edwards so easy to root for and so marketable for the league according to assistant coach Micah Nori.
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“I think that the people gravitated to him because he was just a likeable dude,” Nori said earlier this month after a practice session.
“He doesn’t change. He is who he is. I think anytime you’re not putting on a front or you’re not fake, you don’t have to change who you are, whether you’re in front of the media, or you’re out doing commercials or playing a game.
“Anthony Edwards is who he is, he knows who he is, and I think that’s why he’s able to accept it and handle it so well.
“… There’s obviously a big difference between confidence and arrogance. He’s just a very, very confident person and trusts his ability.”
It is why when Edwards told that Denver staff member he would see them in Game 7, it didn’t seem like just talk, and it is why when he said he “wins two championships this summer”, the rest of the league should have been taking notice.
If they weren’t then, they are now and all signs point to this just being the start of Edwards’ time in the spotlight as one of the most prominent characters in a new era for the NBA.
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MAVERICKS VS TIMBERWOLVES SERIES SCHEDULE
Game 1: Mavericks vs. Timberwolves, Thursday, May 23, 10.30am
Game 2: Mavericks vs. Timberwolves, Saturday, May 25, 10.30am
Game 3: Timberwolves vs. Mavericks, Monday, May 27, 10am
Game 4: Timberwolves vs. Mavericks, Wednesday, May 29, 10.30am*
Game 5: Mavericks vs. Timberwolves, Friday, May 31, 10.30am*
Game 6: Timberwolves vs. Mavericks, Sunday, June 2, 10.30am*
Game 7: Mavericks vs. Timberwolves, Tuesday, June 4, 10.30am*
*if necessary