Ant's evolution. Here are five statistics that show it.
You can't turn on an NBA post-game show or national sports podcast without hearing someone well-regarded saying very nice things about the Timberwolves.
More often than not, the first recipient of those flowers is Anthony Edwards, the transcendent Wolves star who is — we are contractually obligated to report — still just 22 years old.
They eye test shows the evolution of Edwards in everything from decision-making to focus to the ability to consistently be the best player on the court, as La Velle E. Neal III and I talked about on Tuesday's Daily Delivery podcast.
As any good talent evaluator will tell you, though, a more accurate measure of a player comes from the marriage of the eye test and the data. Here are five ways in which the numbers show the leap Edwards has made this season (all information from Basketball Reference):
*Free throws: There is nothing particularly exciting about free throws, but there also aren't many things that are more efficient in the NBA. Edwards came into this season as a respectable 77% career free throw shooter, but he upped that to a very good 83.6% this season (league average was an NBA-record 78.4%).
Edwards made 423 free throws this season — over 100 more than last year and 200 more than either of his first two seasons in the league.
*Two-point efficiency: Edwards has improved his shooting percentage on shots at the rim (0-3 feet) and from 3-16 feet every year he's been in the league. It's made him a much more well-rounded scorer who needs to be guarded at an spot on the court.
*Assist rate: Likewise, Edwards' assist rate has improved in each of his first four seasons. Nearly one-fourth of Wolves field goals this season when Edwards was on the floor came off of assists from Ant.
In all, Edwards assists led to 1,024 points for the Wolves this season — almost as many as starting point guard Mike Conley Jr. (1,049).
*Efficiency metrics: Not surprisingly given all these incremental stats, Edwards easily had his best season in terms of things like win shares, true shooting, box score plus-minus and value over replacement player. If we focus just on win shares (an estimate of the number of wins contributed by a player), Edwards had almost as many this season (7.5) as in his first three years combined (9.0).
*Playoff leap: Edwards played well in first-round playoff losses to Memphis two years ago and Denver last season. But he was even better in the sweep of Phoenix, setting career highs for a playoff series in field goal percentage (.512), three-point percentage (.438), rebounds per game (8.0) and assists per game (6.3).
It seems like we're just going to have to get used to all these nice things being said about Edwards and the Wolves.
