How five words changed everything for Anthony Edwards and the Wolves

The following is an excerpt from the book “Ant,” a biography of Timberwolves guard Anthony Edwards written by the Minnesota Star Tribune’s Chris Hine. The book is available now for pre-order through most retailers by clicking this link. It will be released through publisher HarperCollins on June 3. This excerpt is from Chapter 6 called, “Hey, man, we from Atlanta,” and discusses how a defining 48 hours in Los Angeles led the Wolves to choose Edwards as the No. 1 pick in the 2020 NBA draft over James Wiseman and LaMelo Ball.

The Wolves were the last team to meet with Edwards during the draft process, and they had heard that Edwards’ workout with the Warriors (at No. 2) had not gone well. The story picks up there and has been edited for clarity and brevity.

From an on-court perspective, former Wolves President Gersson Rosas described Edwards as “so raw.” It wasn’t for a lack of effort on Edwards’ part, and it wasn’t as if all that time Edwards spent in the gym through his teenage years was a waste.

But the Wolves and every other NBA team were looking at Edwards through their lens and comparing him to other players who had played high-level basketball from a younger age than he did. Players who hadn’t played football and been late bloomers when it came to hoops.

All of this added up to Edwards being a diamond in the rough who held incredible promise, but would need a significant amount of polishing. Even though Edwards hadn’t played football since he was 14, in Rosas’ eyes as a scout and longtime evaluator, Edwards still gave him the impression of being “a football player converting to basketball.” This wasn’t necessarily all bad, though.

“At that point of our organization, we needed grit. We needed toughness. We needed physicality,” Rosas said. “We had skilled players. We wanted two-way guys and his physical tools stood out, and we really felt like this is going to translate.”

As for Edwards’s life off the court, Rosas described what they found as “dicey,” that the number of people who had influence, or were trying to get influence in Edwards’s life, made it difficult to discern who Edwards was as a person.

They had a few “serendipities,” as Rosas termed them, that helped them in this process, people who they knew well that had worked with Edwards at Georgia. Through their digging, the Wolves learned how great a teammate Edwards was at all ages.

“He was loved by his coaches at every level, high school, AAU, college. … He wasn’t this selfish guy who only cared about himself, which is very standard at that level,” Rosas said. “That really intrigued us, because that spoke to ‘Hey, the guy cares about more than himself.’ ”

Despite that, the team still didn’t have a real handle on who Edwards was and had not been able to interact with him one-on-one.

Rosas and former Wolves coach Ryan Saunders were set to meet with Edwards in Los Angeles. But before that happened, Edwards had a number of Zoom interviews with multiple parts of the organization. There were breaks in between some of the calls and during one of those, Edwards went to get a workout in. Then he took another Zoom call. After this particular interview, Rosas got a voicemail from assistant GM Joe Branch.

“Hey, interview went great, but slight curveball. Call me so we can discuss,” Rosas said Branch told him.

“That freaked me out,” Rosas said. “It’s funny how history affects you. … When I was in Houston, we had a player that did that on a Zoom, and we ended up drafting him, and he was a disaster. It was basically foreshadowing.”

Rosas couldn’t help but think about that experience, and when Rosas eventually sat down with Edwards, “Believe me, it came up,” he said. What potential employee, no matter the job, shows up shirtless for a job interview?

“Like, what are you doing? Why did you want to represent yourself like that?” Rosas said he asked him. “It was part of us getting to know him.”

Four years after it happened, Edwards’s former agent at Klutch Sports, Omar Wilkes, sounded both amused and puzzled at how Edwards thought this would be a good look.

“The concept of reminding him to have clothes on was not even like anywhere in the stratosphere for me,” Wilkes said. “Because some things go without saying, you would assume.”

The table was set, literally and figuratively, for what came next in the process — outdoor dinner with Edwards, Rosas, and Saunders at picturesque Nobu restaurant in Malibu. The dinner lasted about four hours, with Rosas asking him almost everything he could from the Wolves’ extensive background check of him, while Saunders broke out his iPad to go over plays and schemes with him. That was the easy part.

“We’re putting everything on the table with him. The interview was impactful, because these type of things are not feel-good sessions,” Rosas said. “We said, ‘We’re going to ask you a ton of questions. We’re going to get very personal with you. We’re going to put you in some uncomfortable situations, and we just want to see how you respond to it.‘”

Four years after the dinner took place, both Rosas and Saunders, independent of one another, pointed to the same moment that stood out to them, something Edwards said that helped move him close to being the top pick in their minds.

“I still feel goose bumps thinking about it,” Rosas said.

Added Saunders: “If you were there, you felt emotional hearing this.”

“He said, ‘I’ve been through the worst in life. My mom’s died, my grandmother died. I can’t go anywhere but up from here,’ ” Rosas said Edwards told them. “I’m going to enjoy every day. You’re always going to see a smile on my face. I’m going to make the most of every day. I don’t know everything. I’m going to make some mistakes, but you can always count on me to know that what I say, my word, is what I mean.

“I take the responsibility of being the No. 1 pick. I take the responsibility of being a Minnesota Timberwolf as the biggest priority and the biggest responsibility in my life, and I know with your organization’s help, I can be successful. I’m giving you my word, I’m committed to this, and I understand the severity of what this situation is.”

That moment, Saunders said, “hooked all of us.”

“This was a young man who was going to make them really proud,” Saunders said.

Edwards’s response inched him closer to becoming the No. 1 pick, but the next day proved it for sure. The Wolves let Edwards know they heard what happened when he worked out for Golden State. (Coach Steve Kerr said the Warriors left that session with the impression Edwards was “lazy.” Edwards’ longtime coach and manager Justin Holland chalked it up to COVID affecting Edwards’ ability to prepare for the draft.)

“Some guys will get defensive; he took it as a challenge. ‘I’ll show you. I’ll prove it to you.’ I said we’re going to see it tomorrow.”

From his vantage point, Holland said the Wolves played the whole process “close to their chest.” They were the last team that talked to Edwards and the last team who held a workout for him. It took place at Kobe Bryant’s gym, formerly known as Mamba Sports Academy. Holland felt good about the changes they made after the Golden State debacle, but he was still worried about what would happen when the Wolves took over the workout.

Holland put Edwards through a revamped, hard 30-minute workout, with Holland accommodating some of the things the Wolves wanted to see. Then with just a bit of trepidation, Holland handed over control as Saunders and Rosas ran a good portion of the next part. Holland said he knew the Wolves would be “trying to make [Edwards] break.”

But there was nothing he could do now. Rosas said Holland was “praying away” on one side of the gym. The next part tested his endurance and mental fortitude.

“Sometimes it sounds easier to do, ‘Hey, I’m just going to do a one vs. zero workout.’ But those workouts, they’re tough, they’re killers,” Saunders said. “Until you get in it, you don’t realize what you’re up against.”

“People say you don’t work. People say you don’t compete,” Rosas said they told him. “People say you failed that workout. People say you’re a football player. We were going at him.”

Holland could see all this was having an effect on Edwards. He was slumping with his head down, and Holland walked over to encourage him. It wasn’t going well. They certainly didn’t need another team thinking he was lazy and couldn’t handle a tough workload.

In normal times, this likely would not have been a problem for Edwards, but this was around month seven of the COVID-delayed draft process. He was exhausted in more ways than one. Anything could happen in this moment, and Holland knew it.

“I saw it in his face,” Holland said. “He had reached that limit where he’s about to say, ‘I’m done.’ I go over to him. ‘Young fella, we are not gonna quit.’ We’re leaning over, I’m whispering in his ear … and then I hear another voice.”

Someone yelled out: “Hey, man, we from Atlanta, this ain’t what we do.”

A stroke ended Moye’s professional career, and he became a college coach and skills coach affiliated with Sports Academy. He was in the gym watching Edwards work out that day. Before the workout began, Holland was surprised to see Moye at the facility. The two were acquaintances — Holland used to attend a bunch of Moye’s high school games at Atlanta’s Westlake High School — but they hadn’t seen each other in a long time.

“I turned around that day and saw Justin, and it was like, ‘What are you doing here?’ ” Moye said. “He said, ‘Ant’s about to have his workout. … If you have the urge to share some advice with him, share it with him.’ ”

Moye had watched Edwards play when he was a freshman at Therrell, but the two didn’t have a relationship, and Edwards didn’t know who he was that day. Holland gave Edwards a quick history lesson.

“I said that’s A.J. Moye, former Georgia Mr. Basketball, a legend,” Holland said.

Moye then came over to share a few quick words with Edwards. “Hey, man, we from Atlanta. You know how we came up,” Moye said he told Edwards. “You know how we were raised. You know we been through much harder stuff than anything that can happen to us on a basketball court. … Ant just looked at me and shook his head. He didn’t say anything. He looked me dead in my eyes and shook his head like, ‘I got you.’ ”

All those “suicides” in football practice with his youth football team, the Atlanta Vikings, when he would have to stay after practice. All those “suicides” with his mentor and former AAU coach Dana Watkins, when he would lag behind, only to have Watkins blow the whistle and say the team had to do it again until Edwards finished first. Those demanding years were leading to this moment.

The promise to make it out of Oakland City, to secure his family’s future. Honoring his mom, Yvette, and grandmother Shirley, and all they had done for him.

Did he want it badly enough to be that top pick? Was he going to let another player get by him at No. 1? Did he want to be the best in his class, and keep striving to be?

“I told him afterwards, you represent all of us,” Moye said. “You’re not making it just for you. You’re making it for all of us. There’s a lot of cats before you that had all the ability in the world, but we just didn’t have the platform that you have now. Take this platform and take it all the way.’ I’m so proud of him, man.”

Moye’s words were just the reminder Edwards needed.

From his vantage point, Saunders didn’t see much of Edwards’s struggling — he was just experiencing a tough moment in a demanding workout. But he had a gut feeling from how Edwards talked at dinner that no matter what they threw at him, Edwards wasn’t going to back down.

“After hearing him say that, it was something I felt connected to having lost my father, and understanding the depths of grief and how you can generate strength out of that,” Saunders said. “That made me feel like he wasn’t going to quit.”

The execution of the drills didn’t even matter to the Wolves. They weren’t concerned with how many makes or misses he had, how well he went through the drills; they already knew they had their work cut out for them honing Edwards’ skills. It was all about the effort. Edwards gave it his all. Rosas and Saunders could see it.

“He did everything we asked,” Rosas said. “He didn’t quit. He competed, and he got our respect.”

Added Saunders: “Whenever we asked for something else or something more, he obliged. It was really impressive.”

“It was poker faces,” Holland said. “Good job, great workout, but not a lot of enthusiasm or emotion. We had dinner plans, but not like anything that showed us it’s a done deal.”

But Holland knew Edwards had killed it, and they left that day feeling good about Edwards’ chances of being the top pick. What they didn’t know was before Rosas left the gym, he called Wolves owner Glen Taylor.

“Glen, I got our No. 1 pick,” Rosas said. “This is the guy.”