Edwards and Russell Carrying Wolves Without Towns
The Timberwolves have been on of the best team's in the league in the month of January and Anthony Edwards and D'Angelo Russell have been leading the way.
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Could you guess which teams have played best in the month of January? No.1 is the Philadelphia 76ers, but then then the Denver Nuggets and Minnesota Timberwolves are tied at 11-4 in the first month of the year. Who would have thought after a rough December that saw the Timberwolves scraping for the fringes of the play-in seeds and now sit in sixth place in the West, one-half game ahead of Golden State.
The margins are still wildly thin in the Western Conference. Despite a week with victories in New Orleans and at home versus Sacramento and Memphis — three of the top teams in the conference all season — the Wolves are two games from both third place and 12th place. This must be like what it was to follow the Eastern Conference in the 2010s.
What’s more impressive is that this run has come without Karl-Anthony Towns. This team is not better without Towns, but they seem to have found an identity with Anthony Edwards driving the offense. The Timberwolves are just 17-14 without Towns. That is not a bad record, but they have managed to keep their heads above water in Towns’ absence, which has been enough in this playoff race.
With a 31-game sample of playing without Towns, we can evaluate some things about this team. This team is carried by three of its best players in Edwards, D’Angelo Russell and Rudy Gobert. Here is what all three have done in Towns’ absence:
Edwards (29 games): 26.1 ppg, 6.4 rpg, 5.1 apg; 46.5 FG% and 40.3 3FG%
Russell (26 games): 20.3 ppg, 2.2 rpg, 5.8 apg; 49.0 FG% and 44.4 3FG%
Gobert (22 games): 13.3 ppg, 12 rpg, 2.4 stocks (steals and blocks) per game; 69.1 FG%
Bless Kyle Anderson, but he is not the guy you want to see carrying this team for extended stretches. Without Towns, the Wolves’ best players have carried this team while the Andersons, Jaden McDanielses and Naz Reids of this team have filled their valuable roles. This is what a functional team looks like.
Edwards and Russell Have Given the Timberwolves an Identity
When the Towns-Gobert fit looked questionable early in the season, it prompted the question whether it made sense to invest $80 million and more over the next four years in a starting front court. Towns and Gobert may prove working together after all, but Edwards and Russell have acted as the drivers of the team’s offense.
What makes this a little surprising is that both Edwards and Russell are players who like having the ball in their hands. Yet, the Timberwolves have found a productive balance with Edwards as the primary ball handler and Russell as the secondary ball handler, which is the right move. Edwards has a 30.1 percent usage rate since Towns went out and Russell at a manageable 22.8 percent. Not only are the Wolves winning this way, but it keeps both players happy with the dynamic.
"No, it's a team game, there’s no "I" in Team. I'm never worried about my time or anything throughout the game of basketball. Finchy [Chris Finch] does a great job of drawing up plays for everybody,” said Edwards after Saturday’s win over Sacramento about ‘waiting for his turn with Russell.’ “So, I’m not really worried. I'm happy when D’Lo comes out like that because it releases the defense off me. So, I’m pretty excited when he come up."
Having both players understand their roles is crucial since the last thing this team needs is their starting backcourt feuding over shot opportunities. There is little doubt that Russell’s recent play has given the Wolves a lot to think about with the trade deadline approaching. Here’s a quote from a recent Britt Robson piece where he lays out the pros and cons of keeping Russell:
“If the Wolves simply decide to let DLo’s $31.3 million salary slot expire at the end of this season, they will have much less flexibility to negotiate trades and add players when Ant and Jaden McDaniels receive huge raises from their rookie-scale contracts in two years’ time.”
The long-term picture certainly does not make the Wolves decision any easier, especially with Russell and Edwards playing so well together right now. It will be curious to see if the Wolves make a move in the next few weeks or try to re-sign him and figure it out later. The fact that only the Rockets and Spurs are out of the Western Conference playoff race doesn’t help either.
At any rate, the wins over the Pelicans and Kings this week looked like the Wolves were creating an identity for the first time this season. The biggest reason for that is Russell and Edwards driving the offense efficiently from the perimeter. Having Gobert as a $40 million per year role player is a bummer, but it is leading to wins right now.
Anthony Edwards, All-Star?
Despite helping carry his team for two months, the Timberwolves’ third-year guard finished ninth in this year’s All-Star starters voting. This is a topic that fans on Twitter have certainly discussed after Edwards finished eighth in player voting and 13th in fan voting, with the media only voting for four players.
I think Edwards would be a justifiable all-star, and may get in anyway if others drop out. Steph Curry and Luka Doncic are unsurprising starters, and Ja Morant, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Damian Lillard make sense as the next three players. That leaves De’Aaron Fox, Devin Booker and Russell Westbrook ahead of Edwards.
The Fox versus Edward debate is interesting, but it would not feel like an insult to Edwards if Fox made it over him. Booker has missed a lot of games, but is one of the biggest stars in the game. Westbrook, however maligned these days, has the backing of one of the league’s largest fanbases behind him.
Reading between the lines, the players think more of Edwards’ season than the fans. This does make since after the national discourse around the Timberwolves in the first two months of the season, where fans of other teams are reading and listening to content about how (understandably) broken the Wolves were early on. Meanwhile, the players who see him on the court view Edwards as top 10.
Now, I think Edwards would be a blast in an all-star game. But Edwards’ perception is apparently not quite there yet. Unless someone ahead of Edwards drops out, I would have a hard time putting him in over many of the guys ahead of him. Let’s see what happens if a guy like Booker who has been hurt much of the season will sit out if he is selected as a reserve by the coaches.
Edwards is certainly deserving of an all-star spot, but several others are too. If the Wolves keep winning, that will also help Edwards’ cause in the future.
Great read Derek, as horrific as this teams play was earlier in the season, a couple of impressive performances leading to wins, changes everything!
Ant either is, or most certainly will be a CB future all-star, because every other team’s players have had the benefit of trying to stop him from kicking them to the curb!