Dan Devine Senior writer Wed, October 28, 2026 at 6:46 PM UTC · 9 min read About Our Ads Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement It was working.
The whole idea behind the Minnesota Timberwolves' massive summertime pivot — out go Julius Randle and Naz Reid, in comes LaMelo Ball — was to find a way to reduce the ball-handling and shot-creation workload on Anthony Edwards, and allow the four-time All-Star to do what he does best: put the ball in the basket, again and again and again. And through four games of the 2026-27 NBA season, it was working .
Edwards opened the season on fire, scoring more points per game than anybody besides Luka Dončić, while shooting 54% on 2-pointers and 40% from long distance. He's been at his most efficient with Ball setting him up, posting an absurd 75% true shooting percentage (which factors in 2-point, 3-point and free-throw accuracy) with Ball on the floor , 20 percentage points above his career average; LaMelo-to-Ant has produced more baskets (10) than any other assist combination in the league thus far.
The Wolves enter Wednesday's matchup with the Golden State Warriors owning the NBA's No. 4 offense and leading the league in both pull-up field goal attempts and pull-up shooting efficiency , with Edwards and Ball leading the way. Minnesota is scoring a scorching 126.8 points per 100 non-garbage-time possessions with its new-look backcourt on the floor, opening the season with three blowout wins and an overtime loss against a Cleveland Cavaliers squad that just made the Eastern Conference finals.
The vibes between LaMelo Ball and Anthony Edwards were strong early on. (Photo by Erick W. Rasco/Sports Illustrated via Getty Images)
This, broadly, is the formula that the Wolves believed would give them the brand of firepower necessary to be able to more effectively stand toe-to-toe with the likes of the Oklahoma City Thunder and San Antonio Spurs, who have eliminated them from the last two postseasons. It's a formula, however, that requires Edwards to remain upright and ambulatory … and, as we learned on Tuesday, that's something he's not going to be for a while .
Just four games into the season, Edwards needs arthroscopic surgery on his right knee — the same knee in which he experienced recurring issues last season with what's called patellofemoral pain syndrome, or "runner's knee." That ailment cost the All-NBA guard 11 of the Wolves' final 14 games of the regular season; he needed to have his right knee drained multiple times during Minnesota's playoff run , too. (He also hyperextended his left knee during the opening round against the Denver Nuggets; he missed just two games, and averaged 23.7 points on 47/38/80 shooting splits after returning.)
After spending the bulk of the summer resting up to give that knee time to properly heal , and reportedly feeling fully healthy and operational through Minnesota's training camp and preseason slate, Edwards reportedly tweaked his knee during the Wolves' opening-night win over the Miami Heat. You'd be forgiven for not noticing, considering he hung 45 and drilled nine 3-pointers to ruin Giannis Antetokounmpo's South Beach debut:
Despite the tweak, Edwards played on, with observers noticing frequent grimacing , instinctive reaches for that right knee , and the occasional limp. But while he was listed as questionable heading into Monday's matchup with the Cavaliers, Edwards not only played, but logged 41 minutes, had more total touches ( 82 ) and a higher time of possession ( nine minutes ) than any other player in the game, and finished nearly 40% of Minnesota's offensive possessions with a shot attempt, foul drawn or turnover — a usage rate that would've been a top-five mark for him in each of the last four seasons — all on the second night of a back-to-back.
In fairness, he did look awfully good while doing so …
… and the Wolves, it seems, didn't suspect that there was anything more significant going on than the kind of soreness through which superstars of Edwards' caliber are often expected to play.
"It's a daily situation," Wolves head coach Chris Finch told reporters before the Cavs game. "I don't think there's any long-term concern."
Concerns mounted after the game, though, with subsequent imaging showing "increased issues there," according to ESPN's Shams Charania — damage "that was different from what he experienced against the San Antonio Spurs in May," according to Jon Krawczynski of The Athletic.
"It's not a meniscus," Wolves president of basketball operations Tim Connelly told reporters at the team's Wednesday shootaround session. "It's just a — I don't want to speak out of school. My liberal arts degree will screw me up. It's just an arthroscopic clean-up of his knee. … We've had a bunch of imaging since the summer, and it changed as of yesterday."
Based on that new information, player and team elected to move forward with a surgical procedure on Thursday, from which Sarah Todd of the Minnesota Star Tribune reports that the Wolves "hope to have [Edwards] back on the court sometime in December." That might be a tad optimistic. Krawczynski pegs Edwards' return as more likely to be in January : "As of now, the belief is it's going to be more than two months ."
Two months from Thursday would be Dec. 29. The Wolves' final game of 2026 comes on New Year's Eve at home against the Denver Nuggets. If Edwards is back for that, he would have missed 28 games, ensuring that, for the second consecutive year , he'll be ineligible for year-end awards like Most Valuable Player and the All-NBA teams, and for the supermax salary escalators on his next extension that would come if he were to receive them.
The message coming out of Minnatlantasota , though, is that Ant is focused less on putting himself in position to make the top dollar next summer than giving himself the best chance to reach the top of the mountain this spring.
"Like we've talked about before, there's only one thing that matters to Ant," Justin Holland, Edwards' business manager, said in a statement to The Athletic . "It's not about individual accolades, All-NBAs or anything like that. It's a single focus: winning a championship. We've seen in a short time what this team is capable of, and know big things are ahead when all are 100%."
That could be especially true in a Western Conference in which the Thunder will likely be without starters Jalen Williams and Cason Wallace for most, if not all, of the regular season , and in which a Spurs team that opened up with losses to Oklahoma City and Houston might have some kinks to iron out as they look to return to the NBA Finals. If the expected powerhouses have more cracks in the armor than might have been anticipated, and if Edwards and the Wolves believe that what they put on tape during those first four games is real, then nothing matters more than entering the postseason as close to full strength as possible — even if that means putting Edwards on ice.
"With Anthony, all he wants to do is compete, so he's doing this kicking and screaming," Connelly said Wednesday. "But we're pretty confident that he'll get out there when he's right. We don't know when it's going to be, but we don't think it's going to be something that's going to cost him the season. … The best thing about what he's gonna go under is, he'll be as good as new. It's not something we're concerned with long term."
Of course, the rest of the Wolves still have to make it through these next two months without falling too far off the pace in the West. You don't just replace a player who can average more than 30 points per game while soaking up nearly 40% of the team's offensive possessions; it'll be interesting to see how Finch rebalances the books to keep Minnesota's attack humming.
You'd expect Jaden McDaniels, who saw his per-possession scoring and usage rate both climb last season when he wasn't playing alongside Edwards — and who opened eyebrows with his 32-point, 10-rebound performance to close out Denver in Game 6 of the opening round with Edwards sidelined — to play a larger finishing role, too. You'd expect Ball — who, through four games, is scoring, shooting and using a lower share of his team's offensive possessions than he has since his rookie year in Charlotte — to scale his usage back up toward the No. 1 option levels of his latter years with the Hornets.
You'd expect the Wolves to push the pace even more, too. Minnesota has gotten out in transition less frequently in recent years with Edwards on the floor than when he sits , and a more Ball-centric approach would seem to be one oriented more toward hitting the gas than to patiently probing in the half-court.
"I think it's more pace now," reserve guard Bones Hyland told reporters on Wednesday. "More running, a lot more up-and-down, and a lot more excitement as well. A lot of players stepping up. We got a lot of versatility, so I think it's gonna be good for us."
Ayo Dosunmu, recipient of a nine-figure contract this summer , will likely slide into the starting lineup and shoulder some of the shot-creation workload. Jonathan Kuminga, off to such a strong start doing the dirty work as a complementary two-way power forward, could be asked to step into more shots. Finch will need more from reserves like Hyland, Terrence Shannon Jr., Jaylen Clark and, frankly, everyone else — including Rudy Gobert and Joan Beringer, the back-line anchors of a defense that will have to remain among the NBA's elite for the Wolves to consistently notch Ws in the absence of their most dangerous offensive weapon.
Edwards, evidently, is confident in their ability to hold down the fort without a top-10 player in the world. It's kind of ironic: What Edwards saw in these first four games made him believe enough in the potential of who the Wolves could grow to be that he's willing to sacrifice the next couple of months in hopes of maximizing their opportunity of reaching that vaulted ceiling.
Source: Sports
0 Comments