Minnesota Timberwolves legend Kevin Garnett is very excited about the future of the franchise, but he does not want anything derailing the team. To that end, Garnett sent a firm warning to the team about Anthony Edwards’ upcoming summer.
Garnett said on the “All The Smoke” podcast that the Timberwolves are poised for future success after their run to the Western Conference finals, but it will be important to allow Edwards a summer of rest ahead of next season. There is one problem with that: Edwards is on the Team USA roster for the Summer Olympics in Paris, and Garnett thinks the organization needs to lay out some expectations.
“To Minnesota’s ownership: Make sure in these Olympics that these Olympic coaches do not play Anthony Edwards. There will be a lot of those little games that people don’t really talk about.”
Garnett added that in his lone Olympics in 2000, he was relied upon to play a lot of minutes, which prompted then-Timberwolves coach Flip Saunders to have a word with Team USA.
“You get in the Olympics, it’s supposed to be this 12-man roster of superstars, but I’m playing the bulk of the minutes. 40 minutes, I’m playing 36 minutes,” Garnett added. “Flip had to call and be like, ‘Hey, look, I get it, but we got a season too.’”
Edwards is not the headline attraction on a team that will also feature LeBron James, Steph Curry, Kevin Durant and Joel Embiid, among others. However, Garnett seems to think that Edwards might be called upon to play a lot of unimportant minutes in games that turn into blowouts. Even if that is not the case, Edwards emerged as a focal point at the FIBA World Cup last year, albeit on a much younger team. Still, Team USA coach Steve Kerr raved about him, suggesting Edwards might be in line for a significant role at the Olympics no matter what.
Edwards played in 79 games in the regular season plus another 16 in the playoffs, by far the heaviest workload of his career so far. Garnett may be justified in his concerns about the young star not getting a summer off after all that.