Timberwolves’ Anthony Edwards Sounds Off Amid Losing Streak: ‘We Soft’

November 28, 2024

Anthony Edwards has never been one to mince words, and he certainly didn’t hold back after the Minnesota Timberwolves dropped their fourth straight game — a 115-104 loss to the Sacramento Kings.

The Timberwolves star delivered a raw, profanity-laced critique of his team’s struggles, and it wasn’t just about their on-court execution. For Edwards, the problems are deeper.

“Our identity right now is, I think, we soft as hell as a team, internally,” Edwards told reporters bluntly. “Not to the other team, but internally, we soft. We can’t talk to each other. Just a bunch of little kids. Just like we playing with a bunch of little kids. Everybody, the whole team. We just can’t talk to each other. And we’ve got to figure it out because we can’t go down this road.”

That’s the kind of honesty that makes Edwards the undisputed face of the franchise, but it also underscores the growing pains in Minnesota.

After a surprise run to the Western Conference Finals last season, the Timberwolves have stumbled out of the gates in 2024-25.

Following a 6-3 start, they’ve dropped seven of their last nine games and now sit at 8-10. The offseason blockbuster that sent Karl-Anthony Towns to the Knicks and brought in Julius Randle and Donte DiVincenzo hasn’t quite clicked yet, and Wednesday’s collapse was a glaring example.

Up by 12 in the fourth quarter, Minnesota fell apart against a Kings team that simply outlasted them. That came a day after an overtime loss to the Houston Rockets at home—another game the Timberwolves let slip through their fingers.

Edwards didn’t pull punches when it came to describing the team’s mindset.

“We look like front-runners for sure tonight,” he said. “We was down, nobody wanted to say nothing. We got up, and everybody [was] cheering and [hyped up]. We get down again and don’t nobody say nothing. That’s the definition of a front-runner. We as a team, including myself, we all was front-runners tonight.”

The leadership void that Towns’ departure left is hard to ignore. While Randle and DiVincenzo were seen as high-profile additions, their transition to Minnesota has been anything but smooth.

Meanwhile, Towns has been thriving in New York, giving the Knicks exactly what they’d hoped for when they acquired him.

But for Edwards, the blame doesn’t lie solely with the new guys. He made it clear the issues are team-wide.

“I’m talking about the whole team,” Edwards said. “However many of us it is, all 15, we go into our own shell, and we’re just growing away from each other. It’s obvious. We can see it. I can see it, the team can see it, the coaches can see it.”

The fans? They can see it too. They let the Timberwolves know it with boos that Edwards found hard to swallow.

“The fans f—ing booing us,” Edwards said. “That s— is crazy, man. We’re getting booed in our home arena. That’s so f—ing disrespectful, it’s crazy.”