Minnesota Timberwolves: Concerns about Anthony Edwards may have been overblown

Anthony Edwards was a widely-panned No. 1 overall pick in the NBA draft for the Minnesota Timberwolves, but he’s already putting some concerns to rest.

The Minnesota Timberwolves had the first overall pick in this year’s draft after winning the lottery, but of all the teams with top picks, they seemed like the poorest fit for that spot.

Among the consensus top three draft prospects, they decided only one really made any sense for them. They didn’t want to draft LaMelo Ball because D’Angelo Russell plays the same position, and they wanted no positional overlap. The Timberwolves didn’t want to draft James Wiseman for the same reason, and Wiseman didn’t want to go to Minnesota and play the same position as Karl-Anthony Towns anyway.

That left Anthony Edwards as the only logical option of the trio, other than a trade which is a risky proposition for any team not looking to get fleeced in their position (looking at you, Philadelphia 76ers and Markelle Fultz).

The Timberwolves did indeed draft Edwards, but there were concerns. He had some red flags in college at the University of Georgia regarding how much he actually loved the game, his shot selection was notoriously poor and you never knew from one game to the next whether you would get Anthony Edwards’ best effort.

Of course, college performance doesn’t always translate to the NBA. That goes both ways, mind you. Generally speaking, a college standout will reach the NBA only to be entirely overmatched for at least their early days. The players are bigger, stronger, faster, smarter and better coached than even the best they had faced in college, and the learning curve is gigantic.

While Edwards surely is going to have some catching up to do on the learning side of things, he’s got the physicality down pat and he has top tier NBA size already. At just 19 years old, he’s 6’5″ and 225 lbs and is a force of nature in the making.

Some of those early concerns have already been assuaged by Edwards’ play. He’s off to a roaring start, averaging 16.5 points per game on shooting splits of .542/.375/1.000 and has only turned the ball over once on above-average usage of 23.6 percent.

Edwards may well have been disengaged at Georgia and the scouting reports were spot on. Maybe that had something to do with the way he feels about basketball, or more likely he simply wasn’t into the whole deal of playing for a mediocre squad with players whose names he would scarcely remember a couple of years later.

For those who were concerned about Anthony Edwards’s translation to the NBA, those worries were certainly not unfounded. However, in his first two games, it looks as though he’s adapting wonderfully to the NBA game. He’s also getting to stretch his wings in a low-pressure environment on a team that will need to overachieve in order to make noise in the playoff picture, and he gets the best of both worlds by also getting to learn from a legitimate superstar in Karl-Anthony Towns.

It’s ok to have been iffy about Edwards, but he’s on the right path with the Minnesota Timberwolves.