Anthony Edwards Could Be The Clutch Player Of The Year

September used to be the best month in Minnesota sports.

The Twins would be preparing for another playoff run and would put off losing to the New York Yankees until October. The Vikings would begin a new NFL season with real (often irrational) hopes of a first Super Bowl victory in franchise history. The Gophers would have hope of a first Rose Bowl appearance since the 1961 season after beating up on some poor mid-major and before getting blasted by Michigan, Ohio State, and Wisconsin during conference play. Anticipation for hockey season was building, and another first-round exit by the Wild is still seven months away.

Meanwhile, nobody had to talk about the Timberwolves because they knew Luke Ridnour probably wasn’t going to carry the team to a playoff appearance, so why even bother.

How the tables have turned in 2026. The Twins are in cheap-owner hell: They won’t sell all their players for future assets, but they also refuse to try to win baseball games. The Vikings are hoping a 47th straight season with a retread quarterback will finally work out. The Gophers are penciled into their annual trip to the Quick Lane Bowl. And the Wild made it out of the first round of the playoffs for the first time since 2015. But Minnesota is quickly becoming a basketball state, whether the boomers I know like it or not.

The Lynx are the best team in the state, led by arguably the most electric player in the WNBA and unanimous Rookie of the Year frontrunner, Olivia Miles. Anthony Edwards is the best athlete in Minnesota sports and already a global superstar at 25. LaMelo Ball is here to turn a prime downtown Minneapolis penthouse into a Space Aliens Bar & Grill. And the Wolves are in the middle of their golden era.

With the NBA season just over a month away, the new-look Wolves have a lot of questions to answer.

• Can Anthony Edwards bounce back from the first injury-riddled season of his career?
• How will LaMelo Ball and Jonathan Kuminga fit in?
• Does Rudy Gobert still have enough juice in his age-34 season to anchor a top-flight defense?
• Is Joan Beringer the French version of Giannis Antetokounmpo?
• How will the Wolves stack up against the San Antonio Spurs and Oklahoma City Thunder?
• And which Wolves are in line to potentially take home some hardware this season and win an end-of-season award?

The last Wolves to take home a major trophy were Rudy Gobert, who won his fourth DPOY award in 2024, and Naz Reid, who also won Sixth Man of the Year in 2024. The team has its sights set on raising the Larry O’Brien Trophy for the first time in franchise history.

But which player has the best shot at an individual award at the end of the season?

The most fun answer would be seeing 25-year-old Anthony Edwards take home league MVP honors next spring. Edwards enters his seventh season in the NBA with high expectations and pressure from national media to either win a championship or demand a trade away from a perennial contender to meet their quota of high-profile stars on high-profile teams. Edwards has the seventh-best preseason odds to win MVP behind two-time reigning MVP Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Victor Wembanyama, Nikola Jokic, Luka Doncic, Giannis Antetokounmpo, and Jayson Tatum.

NBA history is working against Ant’s MVP campaign. The last true shooting guard to win MVP was Kobe Bryant in 2008 when he led the Los Angeles Lakers to the NBA Finals for the first time without Shaquille O’Neal. Since Kobe’s lone MVP, the Michael Jordan Trophy has been awarded to highly efficient two-way scoring wings (LeBron James, Kevin Durant), dominant bigs (Giannis, Jokic, Joel Embiid), or dynamic lead guards (Derrick Rose, Steph Curry, Russell Westbrook, James Harden, and SGA).

LaMelo Ball will relieve Anthony Edwards of primary playmaking duties and free him up to shoot a bunch of open threes or get to the basket without all hands on deck in the paint to try to stop him. There’s a very real scenario where Edwards averages more than 30 points per game this season, but it will likely come at a cost of some assist numbers.

It’s hard to see his raw numbers or efficiency matching those of other high-profile guards like SGA, Jalen Brunson, or Luka Doncic. He’ll need to score 30, and still average around five rebounds and assists on a 60+ win team to really be in the MVP conversation this season.

Rudy Gobert is one of three players in NBA history with four DPOYs. Dikembe Mutombo is the oldest player ever to win DPOY, winning his fourth in his age-34 season. Gobert is entering his age-34 season looking for his record-breaking fifth DPOY award. He’s fourth in the preseason odds and finished fourth in voting last season. Gobert may still have a few elite seasons left in his 7’2” body. Still, with Victor Wembanyama lurking, it’s hard to see Gobert overcoming the alien unless Wembanyama gets injured.

Coach of the Year is an unpredictable award that usually goes to the surprise team that most outplays its preseason win total over/under. Minnesota’s current over/under is 48.5. Finch and the Wolves would likely need to win 65 games to get the usual recognition a Coach of the Year candidate generates.

No Wolves rookie profiles to be anywhere near the Rookie of the Year race, especially in a year with AJ Dybantsa, Darryn Peterson, Cameron Boozer, and Caleb Wilson. Isaiah Evans might get some run, but don’t expect a star turn from the end of the bench.

Ayo Dosunmu has the fourth-best odds to win Sixth Man of the Year. It’s not hard to see a path for a second Wolves 6MOTY in three seasons. Dosunmu averaged 14.4 points, 4.2 rebounds, and 3.5 assists in 24 appearances in Minnesota last season. He turned it up in the playoffs, including a 43-point masterpiece against the Denver Nuggets in the first round of the playoffs. The Timberwolves also gave Dosunmu a five-year, $112 million contract this offseason. They clearly see a big role for Dosunmu this season, so 6MOTY doesn’t seem so far-fetched.

Jaden McDaniels or Terrence Shannon Jr. have outside shots at Most Improved Player. McDaniels would have to take another step and become an All-Star-level player. Meanwhile, TSJ would have to go from a sparsely used bench player to a sixth-man scoring machine. But MIP almost exclusively goes to a player who goes from borderline star to superstar, so it seems unreachable.

The award most likely to go to a Timberwolves player this season is Clutch Player of the Year. Ant was basically on track to win his first CPOTY last season when he was nails in clutch time until late-season injuries and mild regression pushed him off the pedestal.

Edwards finished second to SGA in clutch scoring per game last season, and shot 37.8 percent from three and 56.5 percent from the field. The Wolves were 15-9 in clutch games with Anthony Edwards on the court last season. Edwards finished in third place last season, one point behind Jamal Murray. He’s tied for the second-best odds heading into this season with SGA and barely behind the preseason favorite Jalen Brunson.

It might not be the sexiest award. It might not be in the first paragraph of his eventual Hall of Fame resume. But winning Clutch Player of the Year would mean a lot to Edwards as he tries to conquer the NBA.