Minnesota Sports Forum

One of the mantras I'm hearing is that Edwards needs to go to the basket more and not settle as much for pull up or stepback 3's. I agree in general, but what do the (very early) numbers say? How does he compare to the career numbers of some of the league's great scoring guards and wings?

Name - % of FGA from 0-3 Feet/FG% from that range
Donovan Mitchell - 21%/63%
Devin Booker - 21%/65%
Bradley Beal and DeMar DeRozan- 22%/66%
James Harden - 27%/64%
Anthony Edwards - 30%/67%
Jaylen Brown - 32%/65%
Russell Westbrook - 36%/59%
LeBron James - 36%/73%

Doesn't seem too bad to me. That doesn't mean he shouldn't try to do it more, but teams are forcing him to prove he can shoot and the Wolves system pretty much considers any 3-point shot a good shot. He's taking very few mid-range shots and long 2s, so overall his shot distribution is pretty solid IMO.

Very good stuff, Q. I wouldn't say that I have been disappointed at all by the number of times Ant attacks. I just want more! When he drove in college, he would always have three guys hanging on him, often resulting in a forced shot. I love seeing what this strong kid can do around the basket when he's not double or triple teamed. When Ant is open for a three, take it by all means. Otherwise I want him driving or moving the ball.

FNG wrote:Very good stuff, Q. I wouldn't say that I have been disappointed at all by the number of times Ant attacks. I just want more! When he drove in college, he would always have three guys hanging on him, often resulting in a forced shot. I love seeing what this strong kid can do around the basket when he's not double or triple teamed. When Ant is open for a three, take it by all means. Otherwise I want him driving or moving the ball.

I like the 67 FG% the most, second only to LeBron's career number! That also reinforces your point - he needs to keep trying to get to the basket. At some point people are going to start fouling him too as the officials will start giving him the whistle for being the aggressor.

Yes, good stuff, Q. That's good information that helps put things in perspective. I'm actually not surprised by those numbers. My observation was that Edwards was great about going to the rim the first two games, but seemed to be back-sliding in the two LA games. I'd be interested in seeing the individual game breakdown of his shots to see if my observation was accurate. I think he improved last night, taking it to the basket in the 4th quarter.

This is a critical point in Edwards' NBA career. He came into the League with great abilities, but also with some bad tendencies - getting lazy on defense and settling way too often for contested threes. I haven't seen any sign of lazy defense with the Wolves yet, but it looked like he was backsliding into his bad habit of jacking up threes too often in LA. The Wolves coaching staff needs to react firmly at the first sign of any backsliding on those bad tendencies he displayed in college. I assume they're doing that because he sure attacked the rim in the 4th last night.

I'm still excited about Edwards and we'll all have to live with ups and downs with him throughout the season. He's not only a rookie, but a young one. That said, he's oozing talent, has a lot of confidence and already has an NBA body. So I can see him developing pretty rapidly this season. I'm still not in favor of starting him because I think that's a carrot the Wolves coaching staff needs to hold back. But I want to see him get a lot of minutes off the bench consistently every game. And I like that they are trusting him a lot with the ball.

Good info Q.

I'd be curious about how many of his midrange 2's have been contested. It feels like if he dribbles in and take them he is generally wide open almost nobody even there to contest. They also seem like he is a couple feet closer than Wiggins long 2's he would take. Ok I just looked up his long 2 FG percentage. Under 15%. That's a little surprising to me. I didn't expect it to be really good but i didn't think it would be terrible. Fortunately he isn't jacking up a ton of those. Just under 10% of his FGs still fewer of them than Wiggins did except for partial year with the Wolves.

monsterpile wrote:Good info Q.

I'd be curious about how many of his midrange 2's have been contested. It feels like if he dribbles in and take them he is generally wide open almost nobody even there to contest. They also seem like he is a couple feet closer than Wiggins long 2's he would take. Ok I just looked up his long 2 FG percentage. Under 15%. That's a little surprising to me. I didn't expect it to be really good but i didn't think it would be terrible. Fortunately he isn't jacking up a ton of those. Just under 10% of his FGs still fewer of them than Wiggins did except for partial year with the Wolves.

Yes, he generally takes good shots and his mid-range attempts have been wide open. The one area he settles is the pull up or step back 3 off the bounce. Those are tough shots. They are good shots for a guy like Harden or Curry, but Edwards isn't there yet! But overall, I'd say he takes the kind of shots we want him taking. I just think if we suddenly rush him into the #1 scoring option as a starter (with KAT out) he'll suddenly revert back to his bad habits at Georgia. Keep him on a short leash and play the long game with him....

Q12543 wrote:

monsterpile wrote:Good info Q.

I'd be curious about how many of his midrange 2's have been contested. It feels like if he dribbles in and take them he is generally wide open almost nobody even there to contest. They also seem like he is a couple feet closer than Wiggins long 2's he would take. Ok I just looked up his long 2 FG percentage. Under 15%. That's a little surprising to me. I didn't expect it to be really good but i didn't think it would be terrible. Fortunately he isn't jacking up a ton of those. Just under 10% of his FGs still fewer of them than Wiggins did except for partial year with the Wolves.

Yes, he generally takes good shots and his mid-range attempts have been wide open. The one area he settles is the pull up or step back 3 off the bounce. Those are tough shots. They are good shots for a guy like Harden or Curry, but Edwards isn't there yet! But overall, I'd say he takes the kind of shots we want him taking. I just think if we suddenly rush him into the #1 scoring option as a starter (with KAT out) he'll suddenly revert back to his bad habits at Georgia. Keep him on a short leash and play the long game with him....

Yeah and also let him have some times where he does some stuff good and bad. He needs to figure out what he can and can't do...or figure out how he can do it or what he should do instead.

I think one of the really encouraging things about Edwards is he seems to be a guy with legit personality. There were reports he was sort on and off in this regard it he seems to be on a lot. Wiggins never had that and I think it was and is still a problem for him On the court. I've wondered for a couple years if Wiggins has some sort of social anxiety. It would make a lot of sense if that was the case.

Name - % of FGA from 0-3 Feet/FG% from that range
Donovan Mitchell - 21%/63%
Devin Booker - 21%/65%
Bradley Beal and DeMar DeRozan- 22%/66%
James Harden - 27%/64%
Anthony Edwards - 30%/67% UPDATE - 34%/64%
Jaylen Brown - 32%/65%
Russell Westbrook - 36%/59%
LeBron James - 36%/73%

Just wanted to update this and will continue to keep an eye on it. This is all about taking efficient shots. By the way, 45% of his shots are from 3. So about 80% of his shots are near the rim or from 3. The other numbers here are Career numbers for other high-usage guards and wings.

I'm not happy with his lack of accuracy from 3 - that ultimately needs to improve and the Wolves have a horrible history in finding prospects that turn themselves into good shooters. BUT....he is getting to the basket. If we are looking to dig beneath the first level advanced stats (which don't look so good for him), there is a sliver of hope.

Love it, Q. The kid's only 19, but he said in pre-season that he understood the team's philosophy is to focus on 3's and layups/dunks, and at 80%, he is definitely walking the talk. I've noticed the slight uptick in his drives to the basket (notably D-Lo too) but also noticed that he has not finished quite as well (although still very good)...a few more blocked shots in the past couple games. Still, I love that he is patterning his game after 2 guys who also use their physicality to create high-percentage shots...I note the only players with a higher percentage of 0-3's are James and Westbrook, two strong players who also are below average 3-point shooters (James made 29% of his threes as a 19-year-old rookie, and Russ is only 30% for his career).

Edwards is shooting 40.6% from the field and 28.8% from behind the arc. Those numbers are almost identical to his college stats. Yes, I see the talent. But his early NBA numbers tell us that he remains low-efficiency scorer who doesn't help his team win games. Long way to go, but it's not often that a player becomes something fundamentally different from what he was in college.