The Minnesota Timberwolves entered the season as a team looking to build on their dark horse Western Conference Finals run from last year, but are ending November just hoping to stay in the playoff hunt, and it’s safe to say franchise star Anthony Edwards isn’t happy about it.
Less than a week after exploding at Julius Randle and Rudy Gobert on the court for beefing with each other in the middle of a close game, the always-unfiltered Edwards teed off on his “trash” team (including himself in that assessment) after their 115-104 loss to the Sacramento Kings:
Ant had a lot to say this evening. Will be writing about it tonight. Says he feels like the team has been growing apart. That they can’t talk to each other anymore. It’s everyone, he’s not singling out the newbies. Says everyone has their own agendas right now.
— Chris Hine (@ChristopherHine) November 28, 2024
Ant: “We got up and everybody cheering and fucking hype. We get down again and don’t nobody say nothing. That’s the definition of a frontrunner. We as a team, including myself, we all was frontrunners tonight. It was some bullshit, for sure.”
— Chris Hine (@ChristopherHine) November 28, 2024
Anthony Edwards: “However many of us it is, all 15, we go into our own shell and we’re just growing away from each other. It’s obvious. We can see it. I can see it, the team can see it, the coaches can see it.”
— Chris Hine (@ChristopherHine) November 28, 2024
Anthony Edwards (2/2): ” …. Just a bunch of little kids. Just like we playing with a bunch of little kids. Everybody, the whole team. We just can’t talk to each other. And we’ve got to figure it out, because we can’t go down this road.”
— Chris Hine (@ChristopherHine) November 28, 2024
Anthony Edwards: “The fans fuckin’ booing us. That shit is crazy, man. We’re getting booed in our home arena. That’s so fuckin’ disrespectful, it’s crazy.”
I kind of understand him. This is all frustrating right now. But it feels like the trigger is a little quick.
— Jon Krawczynski (@JonKrawczynski) November 28, 2024
The loss to the Kings dropped the Timberwolves to just 8-10 overall, good for 12th place in the current Western Conference. But suffice to say it’s not just the record that has Edwards upset. As our own Ryan Eichten summarized over at Canis Hoopus, the Timberwolves continue to lose in increasingly agonizing ways. After a strong third quarter, Minnesota completely rolled over on Wednesday night:
The Kings would finish the game on a 29-6 run including scoring on ten straight possessions late in the game to secure a 115-104 victory over the Wolves, their fourth straight loss.
It’s not immediately clear how things get better for the Wolves. They aren’t dealing with any major injuries, but just seem to have far worse chemistry than they did in their magical season last year. Losing Karl-Anthony Towns in an offseason salary dump (that was nakedly designed to save ownership money) was always projected to hurt their offense, but it shouldn’t have made their defense collapse from first in the league to 12th.
Before tonight, one would have guessed that the Wolves would normalize a bit from these lows — and they still probably won’t remain this bad — but if Edwards calling out the whole team like this publicly doesn’t light a fire under them to turn things around, this could descend into a season from hell faster than you can say “front runners.” But not faster than Edwards can.
