Minnesota Sports Forum

I think on a general point with Ant is it nice to see that his increased usage has caused his raw counting stats to improve across the board. It makes me believe there is a case to be made to continue give him more opportunities with the ball in a lead role.

AbeVigodaLive wrote:

Q-was-here wrote:I'd have to look at Ant's numbers for the past 20 games and see how they stack up against the rest of the NBA. Believe it or not, I'm not sure it's truly Top 25. That's not because Ant isn't playing well. It's because there is SO much talent right now in the NBA. I'll check it out...

The past 10 is pretty damn impressive. We'll have to see if it's sustainable.

"He is averaging 28.1 points, 8.0 rebounds, 5.6 assists, 1.5 steals and is shooting 54.7 percent from the field and 37.8 from 3-point range over the last 10 games."

So I looked at the last 15 games since all 15 were without KAT and it gives us a bigger sample size. Then I compared his 15-game stats to the full season stats of everyone else in the NBA.

I believe that he is NOT top 25, even within that 15-game context where he averaged 25.5 pts, 7.3 rebs, and 5.3 assists.

Just to give you guys some perspective, the 25.5 points per game would put him 21st in the NBA in points per game on a season-to-date basis. That's how prolific the league has become. He's well outside of the top 25 in rebounds and assists as well. He is one of the very best at getting steals.

Now let's go to efficiency. Of all the top 25 scorers in the NBA, he has the second worst TS% of 57%. Only Ja Morant is worse at 55%. So many guys are in the high 50s and above 60% these days. Again, the bar has been raised. A few years ago, 57% was considered really good. Not anymore. He is still below average in scoring efficiency versus the majority of other volume scorers. So the one area he is top 25 in - scoring points - he's doing so inefficiently versus his peers.

Bottom line....Yes, he's improving. But we all need to re-calibrate what greatness looks like in the NBA.

(and yes, I get that the smaller 10-game sample may get him closer to top 25...hopefully he keeps it up).

Q-was-here wrote:

AbeVigodaLive wrote:

Q-was-here wrote:I'd have to look at Ant's numbers for the past 20 games and see how they stack up against the rest of the NBA. Believe it or not, I'm not sure it's truly Top 25. That's not because Ant isn't playing well. It's because there is SO much talent right now in the NBA. I'll check it out...

The past 10 is pretty damn impressive. We'll have to see if it's sustainable.

"He is averaging 28.1 points, 8.0 rebounds, 5.6 assists, 1.5 steals and is shooting 54.7 percent from the field and 37.8 from 3-point range over the last 10 games."

So I looked at the last 15 games since all 15 were without KAT and it gives us a bigger sample size. Then I compared his 15-game stats to the full season stats of everyone else in the NBA.

I believe that he is NOT top 25, even within that 15-game context where he averaged 25.5 pts, 7.3 rebs, and 5.3 assists.

Just to give you guys some perspective, the 25.5 points per game would put him 21st in the NBA in points per game on a season-to-date basis. That's how prolific the league has become. He's well outside of the top 25 in rebounds and assists as well. He is one of the very best at getting steals.

Now let's go to efficiency. Of all the top 25 scorers in the NBA, he has the second worst TS% of 57%. Only Ja Morant is worse at 55%. So many guys are in the high 50s and above 60% these days. Again, the bar has been raised. A few years ago, 57% was considered really good. Not anymore. He is still below average in scoring efficiency versus the majority of other volume scorers. So the one area he is top 25 in - scoring points - he's doing so inefficiently versus his peers.

Bottom line....Yes, he's improving. But we all need to re-calibrate what greatness looks like in the NBA.

(and yes, I get that the smaller 10-game sample may get him closer to top 25...hopefully he keeps it up).

Your very reasonable and probably pretty damn accurate take brings up some things addressed here previously, especially early in the season when Edwards seemed to be a bit stagnant in his improvement.

- There's a lot of talent in the NBA right now.
- There are a lot of players -- including very young players -- who are better than Edwards. Do we expect them to just stop improving?
- There's no guarantee that Edwards is fast-tracked to All NBA and superstar status.

He'll be in year 4 and still striving to make the ASG. Now, there was a time when that would be a silly take considering Edwards will only be 22 next season. But we're seeing a lot of young guys come in and dominate very early in their careers.

____________

All that being said, Edwards is improving. The eye test AND the stat sheet support this. And that's all we can realistically expect as we hope it continues and he ultimately makes a leap toward true star status.

He has the potential to be a special and elite player... in a very real way unlike some of the past players we hoped would reach that level. But he's not there... yet.


[Note: I didn't want the Wolves to draft Edwards. I thought there was bust potential with him at #1. But it sure seems like the Wolves made the best choice of the various players available at the top of that draft. He's fun. And really good.]

The other thing to be a hopeful about with Edwards, and it doesn't really show up in a lot of the advanced stats, is his defense relative to other high volume scorers. I am being very specific here because his defense overall (esp. off ball defense) can be very shaky at times, so by no means do I think he is an all-NBA type defender.

But here's the deal. In a playoff series, at any given moment in time, he can be put on the opposing team's best scorer and probably do about as good as anyone in the league for a set period of time. Not a whole game or series due to the offensive burden he'll have to carry, but for critical stints of time. And no one will EVER try to bait him into switching onto their best player.

Trae Young, Donovan Mitchell, Ja Morant, Luka Doncic, Julius Randle, even Steph Curry....all these guys get targeted in the playoffs. That doesn't mean their teams can't overcome it, but it's a bit of a soft spot in their games and their coaches have to game plan for it. That won't happen with Ant and I think that shouldn't be overlooked in doing a total evaluation of his potential.

I didn't know there to put this.

Here's a fun stat that definitely isn't upsetting:

Ant has 2986 possessions this year. Ja has 2140.

Ja is getting an and-one on 8.1% of his drives in iso. Ant is getting it on 1.6%.

Ja is getting a shooting foul call on 19.8% of his isolation drives. Ant is on 8.7%

To be fair this is a super misleading stat

kekgeek1 wrote:I didn't know there to put this.

Here's a fun stat that definitely isn't upsetting:

Ant has 2986 possessions this year. Ja has 2140.

Ja is getting an and-one on 8.1% of his drives in iso. Ant is getting it on 1.6%.

Ja is getting a shooting foul call on 19.8% of his isolation drives. Ant is on 8.7%

To be fair this is a super misleading stat

I was curious about this a bit too. Since Ant drives a lot I assumed he was leading the league or close to it, but he's right around 20th at 12.1/game. It made me think he still has a ways to go in just deciding to get to the bucket. For reference SGA is leading the league at 24.5.

https://www.nba.com/stats/players/drives?dir=D&sort=DRIVES

thedoper wrote:

kekgeek1 wrote:I didn't know there to put this.

Here's a fun stat that definitely isn't upsetting:

Ant has 2986 possessions this year. Ja has 2140.

Ja is getting an and-one on 8.1% of his drives in iso. Ant is getting it on 1.6%.

Ja is getting a shooting foul call on 19.8% of his isolation drives. Ant is on 8.7%

To be fair this is a super misleading stat

I was curious about this a bit too. Since Ant drives a lot I assumed he was leading the league or close to it, but he's right around 20th at 12.1/game. It made me think he still has a ways to go in just deciding to get to the bucket. For reference SGA is leading the league at 24.5.

https://www.nba.com/stats/players/drives?dir=D&sort=DRIVES

Guys like Fred VanVleet and Tyrese Haliburton seem totally out of place on that list above Edwards for # of drives...

AbeVigodaLive wrote:

thedoper wrote:

kekgeek1 wrote:I didn't know there to put this.

Here's a fun stat that definitely isn't upsetting:

Ant has 2986 possessions this year. Ja has 2140.

Ja is getting an and-one on 8.1% of his drives in iso. Ant is getting it on 1.6%.

Ja is getting a shooting foul call on 19.8% of his isolation drives. Ant is on 8.7%

To be fair this is a super misleading stat

I was curious about this a bit too. Since Ant drives a lot I assumed he was leading the league or close to it, but he's right around 20th at 12.1/game. It made me think he still has a ways to go in just deciding to get to the bucket. For reference SGA is leading the league at 24.5.

https://www.nba.com/stats/players/drives?dir=D&sort=DRIVES

Guys like Fred VanVleet and Tyrese Haliburton seem totally out of place on that list above Edwards for # of drives...

Yeah I thought that too. Tough to know how they're pulling the stats, but the disparity for Ant's fta's on drives doesn't seem all that out of whack with a lot of players. The more he keeps going to the hoop without complaining the more he's going to get calls.

kekgeek1 wrote:I didn't know there to put this.

Here's a fun stat that definitely isn't upsetting:

Ant has 2986 possessions this year. Ja has 2140.

Ja is getting an and-one on 8.1% of his drives in iso. Ant is getting it on 1.6%.

Ja is getting a shooting foul call on 19.8% of his isolation drives. Ant is on 8.7%

To be fair this is a super misleading stat

Interesting. On a related topic, did anyone else hear what I thought I heard (either from Michael or Jim) on the Wolves broadcast last night that the Wolves lead the NBA in "and ones"?

That's because Anthony Edwards still settles... Like a lot. He should be among the league leaders in drives, but those rushed pull-up jumpers are often wasted possessions as are his turnovers in traffic. He's getting better, no doubt, but still has plenty to smooth out.