Minneapolis (AP) — In his four-plus NBA seasons, Anthony Edwards has never been shy to express himself.
But the Minnesota Timberwolves star was especially frank in a profanity-laced assessment of his team’s recent troubles following a 115-104 defeat to the Sacramento Kings on Wednesday night.
“I think it’s we soft as (heck) as a team, internally,” Edwards claimed. “Not to the opposing team, but within, we are soft. We can’t speak to each other. Just a group of tiny children. Just if we were playing with a bunch of tiny kids. Everyone, the entire crew. We just can’t speak to each other. And we have to find it out because we can’t go down this road.”
Minnesota advanced to the 2024 Western Conference finals. However, after opening 6-3 this season, the Timberwolves have dropped four consecutive games and seven of their last nine. A lineup that was drastically altered late in the offseason with the Karl-Anthony Towns trade still appears disjointed at times.
Advertisement
This includes squandering a 12-point fourth-quarter lead against Sacramento the day after losing 117-111 in overtime to Houston at home.
“We look like frontrunners for sure tonight,” Edwards remarked on Wednesday. “We were down, and nobodywanted to say anything. We woke up, and everyone was cheering and psyched up. We get down again, and nobody says anything. That is the definition of a frontrunner. We as a team, including myself, were the frontrunners tonight.”
“Everybody right now is on different agendas,” he claimed. “I think that’s one of the main culprits of why we’re losing.”
Edwards, who led the Timberwolves with 29 points on 9-of-24 shooting, didn’t just criticize his teammates after the game. He was spotted communicating demonstratively in the huddle several times with Julius Randle, Rudy Gobert, and others.
Randle and guard Donte DiVincenzo were the big winners in the October trade that sent Karl-Anthony Towns to New York three weeks before the season began. Both have had up-and-down starts to their Twin Cities careers.