Anthony Edwards Will Miss Up to Two Weeks With Knee Injury As Wolves Jostle for Playoff Seeding

On Tuesday, the Timberwolves suffered a big blow with the Western Conference playoff race heating up.

Ahead of Minnesota’s next game against the Suns, the team announced superstar Anthony Edwards would miss 1-2 weeks with a knee injury. Per the team, Edwards is dealing with inflammation in his right knee. Based on that timeline the earliest the young star could return is on Mar. 25 against the Rockets after missing four games. If Edwards needs the maximum amount of time to recover based on the current timeline, he may not come back until April—with fewer than 10 games remaining in the regular season.

It is a tough blow for Edwards. He has been extremely durable over the course of his NBA career to this point, playing in at least 70 games every year with only three games missed per season since 2022. But this campaign has been a struggle in that regard; the All-Star guard has missed 10 games so far with various injury issues and appears all but certain to break his career high of 12 games missed. He can miss up to 17 games before being ruled ineligible for any league awards.

Despite his injury issues though, this season is going very well for Edwards. The 24-year-old Minnesota cornerstone ranks third in the NBA with 29.5 points per game while adding 5.1 rebounds and 3.7 assists per game. While his Timberwolves have been plagued by inconsistency throughout the season Edwards’s leap as a scorer is undeniable. And even in light of that inconsistency Edwards has his team well-positioned with a few weeks to go before the playoffs; Minnesota enters Tuesday night at 41–27, sixth in the West and only two games behind the Lakers for the third seed.

As long as Edwards is healthy for the postseason the Wolves have a good chance to follow up on last year’s run to the conference finals and figure to be a sincere challenge for whoever they come up against in the playoff bracket. However, with a rather thin margin for error standings-wise, Edwards’s absence comes at a rough time.

Wolves have to jostle for playoff positioning without Anthony Edwards

As noted above the Wolves are in sixth as they prepare for this upcoming stretch without Edwards. Record-wise they are tied with the Nuggets in fifth and are only 1-1/2 games behind the sliding Rockets for fourth. If Edwards’s co-star, Julius Randle, can get into a rhythm and lead Minnesota to a few wins despite the absence of the roster’s top player, climbing the standings is a real possibility. However, the inverse is true as well; the Wolves own only a two-game lead over the seventh-seed Suns for the last guaranteed playoff spot in the West; a slide without Edwards could topple his team back into the play-in tournament.

That means Tuesday night’s clash with Phoenix just became even more significant. Especially since Minnesota’s schedule isn’t exactly easy afterwards. Wednesday brings what should be an easy win over the tanking Jazz, but the Wolves have the Trail Blazers (10th in the West) and the Celtics (second in the East) on the docket before Edwards can return. If he doesn’t return at the absolute earliest possible time according to his current timeline, then his team may have to battle the Rockets (fourth in the West) and Pistons (first in the East) without his prodigious talents. It’s not quite a gauntlet but it’s far from a cupcake stretch.

In Edwards’s absence the team figures to lean heavily on Julius Randle. The three-time All-Star has worked through some ups and downs this season (much like his team) but is coming off one of his best games of the year; Randle dropped 32 points on 11-for-18 shooting in a loss to the Thunder. It’ll be on his broad shoulders to ensure the Wolves don’t sink without Edwards. And if he can band together with the other key members of the roster to soar, Minnesota could end up just fine.

A big stretch coming up for the Wolves while Edwards works to get back to full health.

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