The Athletic’s Jon Krawczynski: What the LaMelo Trade Means for Anthony Edwards

The Minnesota Timberwolves did not stumble into LaMelo Ball. According to The Athletic's Jon Krawczynski, the infatuation had been building for years. "The Timberwolves have been kind of infatuated with LaMelo Ball for like 2 years now," he reported. The thinking, per Krawczynski, was that Ball's blend of "size, shooting, passing, vision, play making" would slot in perfectly next to Anthony Edwards.

This was not a sudden idea. Minnesota had checked in with Charlotte several times over the past couple of years to gauge whether the Hornets would move Ball, and every time, Krawczynski said, they "got the stiff arm."

That changed at the NBA draft. Late in the second round, word began to spread that the Hornets were gauging the market for Ball after what Krawczynski called "such a great year last season in Charlotte." Enter Tim Connelly, whom Krawczynski described as "always one of the most aggressive deal makers in the league." Minnesota got in heavy and negotiated through the night.

The finish line came in the small hours. "I'm told like probably 4:35 a.m. this morning is when they finally felt that they were all on board and that a deal was to be done," Krawczynski reported. They pulled the trigger.

The result reshapes Minnesota's backcourt around two players with shared draft pedigree. As Krawczynski noted, Ball and Edwards were "two of the top three picks in the 2020 NBA draft," and now they will share the same backcourt on the same team.

For Edwards, the move pairs him with the kind of creator the franchise had quietly coveted for two years. After repeated rejections from Charlotte, the Timberwolves finally landed their man, and they did it in an overnight scramble that ended just before dawn.