The Wolves are deep in their offseason reshuffle, but Anthony Edwards took a break from all that to show up at Mercedes-Benz Stadium for a World Cup match between Argentina and Egypt. He didn’t just watch from a suite either. Edwards walked the match ball onto the field in front of a packed crowd in his hometown of Atlanta. It was a simple moment but the kind that reminds you how far his profile has risen. An NBA star carrying a soccer ball onto the pitch during a global tournament just hits different.
Atlanta is Edwards’ city. He spends a lot of his offseasons there, works out there, keeps a base there. So it wasn’t shocking to see him pop up at this game. The crowd ate it up. ClutchPoints clipped the moment and it spread fast. Edwards walked out there in a relaxed fit, looking like he belonged, because he kind of does. Atlanta has embraced him as one of its own.
Meanwhile, back in Minnesota, the front office is betting big that pairing him with LaMelo Ball will unlock another level. The Timberwolves traded Naz Reid and draft picks to Charlotte for Ball, then dumped Julius Randle’s salary on Brooklyn. That’s a lot of size walking out the door. Minnesota used to bully teams with their length and physicality. Now they’re going smaller, faster, more perimeter-oriented. Whether that works depends on Ball staying healthy and consistent, which hasn’t been a given. But when he’s on, he’s one of the best passers in the league and he led the league in made threes last season behind only his own teammate Kon Knueppel. That kind of spacing should open up driving lanes for Edwards that didn’t exist before.
The Wolves haven’t confirmed whether Edwards had any say in the trade, but he’s been public about wanting a real point guard. He got one. Now the question is whether the roster around them can defend enough to matter in the West. The schedule drops next month. That’s when the real math starts.
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