Minnesota Timberwolves

At the end of his first year as head coach, Chris Finch was asked about his thoughts on Anthony Edwards. He praised him effusively, but in part also said:

"[...] We also need him to kind of value some of the smaller pieces of the game. We think he can be a better defender. We know he can be a better rebounder. We know he can get in transition more".

One of the marks of a great player is being able to affect the game on the margins, as Finch alluded to in this quote with the “smaller pieces” of basketball. As a rookie, Ant showed a ton of promise as a dynamic scorer, but pretty much everything else was a question mark. He has improved by leaps and bounds across all three things Finch mentioned, among many other things

Transition offense:

• In his rookie season, Ant was 46th in transition PPG.

• This season, he finished 8th in transition offense behind only Giannis, LeBron, SGA, Jaylen Brown, Bane, Fox, and Morant.

Rebounding:

• In his rookie season, Ant averaged 4.7 rebounds a game.

• This season, he averaged 5.8 rebounds per game, a 23% increase (still a ton of room to grow there IMO).

Defense:

• While he still has a lot of room for improvement, by the eye test, anyone who watches the Timberwolves knows Ant has improved drastically as a defender, and when he’s focused he is an elite on-ball defender.

• There still aren’t any great catch-all metrics for defense, but a few stats that back up the eye test in his improvement as a defender: