The Minnesota Timberwolves shocked many in the NBA when they broke up one of the most devastating 1-2 punches in basketball by trading Karl-Anthony Towns, who didn’t even request one. Towns was the complementary superstar that Anthony Edwards needed to shine last season and advance to his first Western Conference Finals. It signaled the arrival of Ant-Man as an MVP contender and Minnesota as legit title pursuers moving forward.
With such a lethal combination of young players so hard to find, when the T-Wolves traded away KAT in exchange for well-traveled ball hog Julius Randle, whose time with the Knicks was running thin, some were surprised. Many analysts, however, tried to rationalize the trade and put the onus on Edwards’ rising greatness to make up the difference and elevate his game even further.
It appears that was too tall an order and Minnesota underestimated just how influential a baller KAT is, especially during crunch time and creating spacing for Edwards and others to operate as one of the most prolific shooting big men in history.
After trading Towns, the team has struggled to rebuild a new championship chemistry. Without KAT, Edwards’ team lost 115-104 to the Sacramento Kings on Wednesday, marking their fourth straight defeat and seventh in their past nine games. One glaring stat: Minnesota was outscored by 17 points in the final five minutes of the game.
The team’s losing streak has frustrated Edwards, who is realizing how vital a wingman that Towns was and how much more his game offered to the team than the aging one-dimensional Randle.
Following the loss, Edwards voiced concerns that the Timberwolves are not as united as they once were. But how could they be? KAT was a key cog on that team, and replacing a player of his skill set (26.2 ppg and 12.7 rebounds per game, 54.2 percent from the field and 47.2 % from three) is darn near impossible.
“I don’t like front-runners. Myself, I’m not a front-runner. I hate to have front-runners or to think we have front-runners on the team. I don’t think we have any of those. It looks like we were frontrunners tonight, 100 percent,” Edwards said.
“We’re just so negative right now. Last couple years, we was like this [tight], and I just feel like we’ve gradually grown away from each other, which is the craziest thing because most of us have been together,” he added.
While the Timberwolves struggle to regain a winning formula, the New York Knicks have been fusing a bunch of new, exciting pieces together and are finding a groove at 10-8.
Nobody ever considered KAT a physical player, but he didn’t back down and he was a big body who was usually way more talented than his opposing power forwards and centers.
Following Minnesota’s loss to the Kings on Wednesday, Edwards blasted his team’s performance, calling the team culture “soft.”
“I think it’s we soft as [heck] as a team internally. Not to the other team, but internally, we soft. We can’t talk to each other. 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,” Edwards added.
Social Media Feels Ant-Man Not Mature Enough To Lead T-Wolves
Fans had various opinions on Ant-Man’s damning statements. While some respect him being vocal, others didn’t like the way he called out his teammates when he doesn’t exactly exhibit mature qualities off the court.
“Like…you?,” one X user said in response to Edwards calling his team a bunch of kids. “Like a 20 year old who can’t pack his own bag, or get off the video games to be with his family? Ant ain’t no grown up, in any aspect of his life, so when you turn the franchise over to a ‘man’ like that, this is what it looks like. He’s a child. Like this team.”
After winning 56 games last season and finishing third in the Western Conference, the loss dropped the Timberwolves’ record down to 8-10. Edwards continues to play his heart out and try his best to learn how to be a leader. The 23-year-old paced the team with 29 points, five rebounds, and five assists in 37 minutes.
Rudy Gobert’s game has also suffered in the absence of KAT. The four-time defensive player of the year is averaging a double-double but he doesn’t have the luxury of playing with a multi-dimensional force, so his impact is lessened and his offensive deficiencies more glaring.
Joanie Mitchell and then Q-Tip told us that “you don’t know what you got till it’s gone.” Ant-Man and Minnesota are finding this out the hard way, and it could be a problem that isn’t fixable with the current roster.
