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Ernie Johnson believes the NBA would benefit from shortening the regular season below 82 games. Johnson is on his farewell tour as he announced last month that this would be his final season on the iconic Inside the NBA studio program after 37 years. He spoke with Front Office Sports’s Baker Machado last week on a variety of topics, including what he sees for the future of Inside the NBA without him, how ESPN/ABC have handled the program, and why he thinks the season could stand to shed a few games. “If I were gonna do one thing, maybe I would reduce the schedule by a few games, so it’s not 82,” Johnson said when asked about the current state of the league and what changes he would make. “Here we are a week into the season and there’s so many stars who are out right now. That’s the concern. It’s like, OK, so Anthony Edwards isn’t gonna play for a while. OK, so Kawhi Leonard’s out for a while. Look what happened in OKC.”
NBABase: Anthony Edwards’ upcoming knee surgery will cost him eligible All-NBA/MVP status — losing out on a potential 4-year, $304M supermax extension, per @ShamsCharania Edwards can now only sign a $189M extension this offseason. A $115 MILLION difference. 🤯
Jon Krawczynski: "Yes, so what I'm told he's in good spirits. He's obviously disappointed by having to have this procedure. It will take him out of MVP all-NBA consideration and there's financial implications to that as well as competitive implications for the Timberwolves, but I think he's taking it fairly in stride. The one thing that was told to me about this and not just trying to play through it was he looks at the way this team has come together, how quickly they have gelled, his chemistry with LaMelo, how Kuminga is playing, just everything around it and the great start that they've gotten off to, and he really believes that this is a team that can go deep into the playoffs and that can come out of the Western Conference."
Jon Krawczynski: "They get to Miami in the season opener and he's playing and playing well, but from what I'm told at some point in that game, there was a tweak of some sort that happened with his right knee. They got new imaging with an MRI, and it revealed a worse situation than had been examined this last summer in July, I think was the previous examination. And so at that point, Ant was still such a competitive guy, he's like, I think I can play through this. I think it's a pain management situation. I want to be out there for the team. Let's see what's going on. And then, he goes through the next few games, it is still bothering him. We signed against Toronto on Sunday, he was kind of grabbing at his knee and grimacing. He played in a back-to-back in Cleveland, plays 41 minutes, scores 47 points, is very, very effective, but I think at that time coming out of that game, from what I understand, it was another meeting with Timberwolves doctors. When they got back to Minneapolis from Cleveland, and at that time it was determined that, hey, we've got to address this some way, somehow. And so, this is not the exact same injury that he was dealing with in the summertime right after the Spurs series."
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Jon Krawczynski: "So remember. last year Anthony Edwards missed All-NBA by just a couple of games because of some injuries that he dealt with. And so, he came into this season needing an MVP or an All-NBA or Defensive Player of the Year award to trigger the ability for the Timberwolves to offer a supermax extension, which would have been a four-year deal in the area of $304 million that would have started in 2029-30 and extended his contract from there. Because he will not meet the games threshold to qualify for that, he could still sign an extension for less money than that, but we don't know exactly how the team and he will approach that, if he'll want to just extend and have some financial security for himself, or if he can go into the following season and try and get an All-NBA honor next season and then get back into the running for the supermax eligibility."
Jon Krawczynski on Anthony Edwards: 'What I'm told he's in good spirits. He's obviously disappointed by having to have this procedure. It will take him out of MVP all-NBA consideration and there's financial implications to that as well as competitive implications for the Timberwolves, but I think he's taking it fairly in stride. The one thing that was told to me about this is one of the the motivations for doing this now and not just trying to play through it was he looks at the way this team has come together. How quickly they have jelled his chemistry with LaMelo Ball, how Jonathan Kuminga is playing, just everything around it and the great start that they've gotten off to. And he really believes that this is a team that can go deep into the playoffs and that can come out of the Western Conference. And so one of the motivations here for him is, hey, let's just get in, get this taken care of as soon as possible.'
Dane Moore: Bones Hyland when asked about Minnesota playing without Anthony Edwards. "We loaded, bro. We got a lot of talent on the team, lotta guys who can step in. Last year when we played the Nuggets, guys sat out from injuries and we stepped up."
Anthony Slater: ere’s an update from Tim Connelly on Anthony Edwards’ knee surgery. Not a meniscus issue. Team is calling it an arthroscopic procedure. He said imaging was of greater concern than previous problem Edwards has managed. “It’s not something we are concerned with long-term.”
Jon Krawczynski: Anthony Edwards will have surgery on Thursday, after which there will be a better idea on the timeline for recovery, I'm told. As of now, the belief is it's going to be more than two months.
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Edwards tweaked his knee in the season opener against the Miami Heat, team and league sources said. He received an MRI exam earlier this week, and both the team and Edwards deemed surgery was the right measure to address the discomfort in his knee. A recovery timeline will not be available until after he has surgery on Thursday, but the initial belief is he will likely be out through the holidays, which includes Minnesota’s first-ever Christmas Day home game against the Oklahoma City Thunder.
Edwards and the team decided the All-Star would not have surgery in the offseason, believing rest would be enough to get him back to normal. During the preseason, he said the approach had worked well and he was back to normal.
He scored 45 points in the opener against Miami, but he tweaked his knee in that game, sources said. New imaging prompted Edwards and the team to choose surgery to address the situation now, which will allow him to return in plenty of time to help the Timberwolves pursue his goal for this season: a championship.
