Wednesday night, with their first overall pick in the NBA Draft, the Timberwolves selected Anthony Edwards, a freshman wing out of Georgia.
Edwards came out of Holy Spirit Preparatory School in his hometown of Atlanta, where he was rated a consensus five-star recruit and one of the best players in the 2019 class by major recruiting services. He played one year at Georgia under head coach Tom Crean, who also coached at Marquette and Indiana over his career.
Crean joined Dave Lee on the WCCO Morning News Thursday to talk about his freshman star that now begins his NBA career in just over a month, and Crean says one of the biggest challenges for Edwards will be a lack of time.
“What it’s going to take for him to get better, to make the improvements to live through the ups and downs that a 19 year old young man is going to have in his first season in the NBA, especially with no summer league, with no summer training, with no off season training with the team, is going to be a big thing. But I'm really excited for him. I think the Timberwolves fans, if they're patient and allow him to grow into being the kind of player that he could be and keep remembering that he is 19 on, has not played a competitive basketball game in over eight months. I think they're going to be really excited with him.”
Crean says one of Edward’s biggest strength is his personality, and other players will enjoy spending time with him.
“He's got such an infectious personality and people are going to love to watch him play,” Crean said. “I mean, they're going to want to be in the gym. I think he adds to a really good young group. Ryan Saunders I think is just a fantastic coach, young or old. I think he's just an outstanding coach. What I'm excited about is that he's a relationship builder, and I think he will do a really good job of that with Anthony, and it's going to be extremely important that that happens, because Anthony is a really relational guy and having the relationships and that commitment is important.”
One of the knocks coming into the draft on Edwards was his passion for the game, and desire to work hard enough to be a great player. Crean says that is not at all what Edwards was like at Georgia though.
“Anthony came in with humility, to work and to be on the court and be in the gym and to spend a lot of time getting better,” Crean told Dave Lee. “Anthony is an incredible, incredible teammate, and he wants his teammates to be successful. He's sensitive in the fact that, like he wants to be unselfish, right? Like he wants his teammates to be successful, too. But there's a great synergy when that happens, when you really, really care about your teammates.
And for him to be as young as he is and have all the accolades that he has had and that is really, really strong.”
While only 19-years old, there’s no lack of life experience for Anthony Edwards. His mother, Yvette, and grandmother, Shirley, both died from cancer during an eight-month span in 2015, when he was in eighth grade. Edwards was raised by his sister, Antoinette, and brother, Antoine, who shared legal custody over him. On draft night, Edwards was shown sitting on a couch with murals of both his mother and grandmother next to him.
Now, the number one overall pick in the NBA Draft moves to the next stage of his life, trying to bring a winner to Minnesota with Karl-Anthony Towns, D’Angelo Russell and the rest of the his Timberwolves’ teammates.
WCCO is the radio home of Timberwolves basketball. You can hear Anthony Edwards’ introductory press conference this Friday at 10:00a.m. on both 830 WCCO and the RADIO.COM app.