Anthony Edwards and the complicated pathway to becoming the face of the NBA

MINNEAPOLIS — At some point, if this keeps up, Anthony Edwards is not going to have a choice when it comes to the existential question confronting the NBA.

Edwards can say all he wants about not wanting to be the face of the league when LeBron James, Steph Curry and Kevin Durant finally decide to move on. He says he wants nothing to do with the obligations, the scrutiny, the tiresome hot takery that comes with such a distinction. He says he just wants to hoop and go home to play video games and hang out with his family and friends. That exalted plateau might be the only thing he has run from in his life.

His mouth says one thing. His game says another.

The fire in Edwards’ eyes as he stared down LeBron and Luka Dončić in the fourth quarter of Minnesota’s Game 4 victory over the Los Angeles Lakers on Sunday spoke volumes. His Timberwolves trailed the Lakers by 10 points to start the fourth quarter. James and Dončić were having their way with the Minnesota defense and desperate to even the series at 2-2.

So many opponents would have wilted in that moment, unable to stand up to James’s determination or Dončić’s killer instinct. Edwards emerged from the sideline huddle at the start of the quarter, looked at the scoreboard that read LAKERS 94, WOLVES 84 and saw James and Dončić coming out to finish him off. One thought entered his mind.

“Anytime I get open,” he said, “shoot.”

And shoot, he did. Edwards scored the first 11 points of the quarter for Minnesota, hitting three 3s, each with a hand in his face, and a driving floater to ignite a raucous Target Center crowd. When it was all over, Edwards scored 16 of his 43 points in the quarter, grabbed four rebounds and dished out two assists to lift the Wolves to a 116-113 victory over the Lakers that put Minnesota up 3-1 in the best-of-seven series.

WHAT. A. PERFORMANCE.

Ant knows how to put on a show. pic.twitter.com/lbA0Zz109k

— Minnesota Timberwolves (@Timberwolves) April 28, 2025

He was so relentless that Lakers coach JJ Redick only played five players for the entire second half. He never could get to a point where he felt comfortable pulling any of his preferred unit, which swapped Dorian Finney-Smith for Jaxson Hayes to go with his other four starters.

Edwards did not rest either. Seeing James and Dončić start to breathe heavy and put their hands on their knees during timeouts only made him go harder. He kept coming at them and coming at them, and it was the two stars who tapped out, not The One.

The Lakers were outscored 32-19 in the fourth quarter and shot 28 percent from the field. James was scoreless on 0-for-2 shooting in the period. Dončić missed five of his six shots and managed seven points, powerless to hold off Edwards’ charge.

He was 4 for 7 in the quarter, 3 for 4 from 3 and 5 for 5 at the free throw line.

“You could see it in his eyes that he was going to make the play,” Wolves coach Chris Finch said. “He was going to bring us home.”

This wasn’t just a chance to win a playoff game. He had already done that 14 times in his young career. This was a chance to make a statement, to wake the basketball-loving world up to what is happening in Minnesota, to walk down a double-digit deficit against two all-time greats teamed up on the league’s glamour franchise and put the NBA’s dream of another LeBron-Steph playoff showdown in serious jeopardy.

As he rained 3-pointers on Luka’s head in the fourth quarter, as he sought out LeBron in the halfcourt and surged past him to the rim, the age-old nature vs. nurture debate played out in real time. Edwards can try to make himself into someone the league will shy away from. He can rack up fines for boorish behavior, have his name dragged through the social media streets for poor decisions off the court and tell everyone who will listen that Victor Wembanyama is better suited to serve as the face of the league when the old guys retire.

But a status like that is not claimed, it is bestowed. The people gravitated to Jordan’s cutthroat nature, to Kobe’s mamba mentality, to Iverson’s counter-culture defiance and to James, Curry and KD for their unique brilliance. Try as he might to avoid it, the spotlight is drawn to Edwards like Coppola’s camera was to Pacino.

He is an American hooper with a bright smile, a natural charisma and a game that combines the two most thrilling parts of NBA basketball — 3-point shooting and dunking.

When he steps onto that hardwood, when the odds are stacked against him and his team, his true nature is revealed. To duck the smoke that was waiting for him in the fourth quarter on Sunday would have gone against everything that is inside of him. To succumb to James and Dončić and save energy for Game 5 in LA was out of the question.

Edwards knew coming back in the fourth quarter was going to be hard, and that’s just how he likes it. From the time he was a young boy growing up in the hard-scrabble Oakland City section of Atlanta, that is the way he has preferred it. When he lost his mother and grandmother to cancer at 14 years old, he could have given in to the temptations waiting outside his door. Instead, he leaned into his close-knit siblings, left the public school down the street for Holy Spirit Prep, a private school an hour’s drive away, and threw himself into basketball as a way to cope.

Once there, he decided to reclassify and graduate a year early, which meant a daunting schedule of classes to fit in with a national basketball schedule and a grueling training regimen. His advisor told him it would be hard, but Edwards plunged ahead anyway, adding two more classes to his plate while staying at different houses of friends and family just to get by.

When he was looking at colleges, he could have chosen any blue-blood basketball program he wanted. Instead, he chose Georgia, a football school, because it was closer to home.

And he always seems to save his best on the court for the biggest games. The seminal moment of the first-round sweep of Phoenix last season was Edwards jawing at Durant, his favorite player, after hitting a shot over him in Game 1. When the Wolves stunned the Nuggets in the second round, Edwards delivered the dagger with a corner 3 that put them up 10 points with three minutes to go in the fourth quarter.

And there he was on Sunday, when he was exchanging literal body blows with James to let him know that the Timberwolves were not about to be bullied. Not in his house.

oh yes. pic.twitter.com/uXUzRiSkeI

— Rob Perez (@WorldWideWob) April 27, 2025

“I wouldn’t say I was trying to make a point,” Edwards said. “Just let him know that we here. You ain’t just going to push around all night.”

There is the dichotomy of Edwards again. He initially did not want to draw attention to the exchange. He understands how the media ecosystem works and all of the attention that confrontation will get. But he isn’t hiding from it. He wants James to know that he’s ready for anything he throws at the Wolves, and he will not be backing down an inch.

James put up 27 points, 12 rebounds, eight assists and three blocked shots, an absurd performance for any player in a setting like this, let alone a 40-year-old. He got 38 points from Dončić and got an uncharacteristic 23 points from Rui Hachimura. The Lakers hit 19 3-pointers and scored their most points in the series, and it still wasn’t enough to overcome a one-man wrecking crew.

Edwards made 12 of 23 shots, including 5 of 10 from deep, went 14 for 17 at the free throw line and added nine rebounds, six assists and just one turnover. In the first four games of the series, he has 23 assists and just six turnovers, all the while displaying a previously unseen understanding of how to break down the Lakers defense and get good shots for himself or his teammates.

100TH CAREER PLAYOFF 3PM.

HE’S COOKIN’. pic.twitter.com/4Z0nhZyrcz

— Minnesota Timberwolves (@Timberwolves) April 27, 2025

Julius Randle scored 21 of his 25 points in the first half, Jaden McDaniels had 16 points and 11 rebounds and Naz Reid scored eight of his 12 points in the fourth quarter, including two huge 3s in the final four minutes, to help Edwards. But so much of this game came down to a battle of wills between one star for Minnesota and two for LA.

“You could just feel it,” said Wolves assistant Chris Hines, who works closely with Edwards. “He wasn’t going to lose that game.”

That taste for the jugular is too captivating to the audience and too deeply ingrained in him to temper. The Wolves are one win away from advancing out of the first round in back-to-back seasons for the first time in franchise history. It was the fifth time in his five-year career that Edwards has scored at least 40 in a playoff game. He has made 100 3s in his postseason career, the youngest player in NBA history to reach that milestone.

Since arriving in 2020 as the No. 1 overall pick, he has changed everything for a franchise that needed everything to be changed.

“Throughout the entire season, whether in the storms of ups and downs, and different guys in the lineup and trying to figure out and get guys comfortable when it comes winning time, the dude knows how to win,” Donte DiVincenzo said. “That’s flat out what it comes down to.”

In a sign of his growing maturity, he said he knows that this series is far from over.

James authored the greatest 3-1 comeback in league history when his Cleveland Cavaliers rallied to beat the Golden State Warriors in the 2016 NBA Finals. Dončić beat the Wolves three straight games to open the Western Conference finals just last year, wounds that are still fresh for the Target Center faithful.

That is just how Edwards likes it. From the moment he knew the Wolves drew the Lakers in the first round, the wheels started turning in his head. He heard the conversations before the Suns series last postseason.

That’s KD. You can’t win. 

He heard the doubters when they faced the Denver Nuggets in the second round.

They are the defending champions. You can’t win. 

Now they are headed back to Los Angeles for Game 5 on Wednesday. And whether the critics are real or imagined, Edwards was already hearing them even before his team left Target Center. He gathered them in the locker room and delivered a message.

“I told them it’s going to be the toughest game that we’ve played all season, all series, because everyone is going to be against us,” he said. “It’s going to be 300,000 people and then the Timberwolves, 12 plays and then the coaches and then the organization that travels. … Back against the wall in enemy territory.”

He smiled.

“These are the moments that we should live for – going on the road and trying to close a team out,” Edwards said. “It’s going to be a tough atmosphere, but it should be fun.”

Edwards has already taken down Durant in a playoff series. He has already taken down Nikola Jokić. If he is able to bring down James and Dončić on the same team, it will only add to the Ant lore.

Then it might be time for the question to change. Then it may be time to stop asking why Edwards does not want to be the future face of the league and start asking, how can he not be?

(Photo: David Berding/Getty Images)

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