Anthony Edwards is a superstar. There is no doubt about it at this point of his NBA career.
Five seasons in, the Minnesota Timberwolves guard has established himself as one of the best, most exciting and most impactful players in the league.
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But in 2020, the jury remained out. And Steve Kerr wasn’t a believer. At least, not at first.
The Golden State Warriors coach was less than impressed with Edwards’ pre-draft workout and delivered a message to Edwards that changed his approach to the game.
Edwards has told the story before. Now both Edwards and Kerr have shared it again ahead of their clash in the Western Conference semifinals as Edwards’ Timberwolves and Kerr’s Golden State Warriors prepare to face off Tuesday night.
The Timberwolves held the No. 1 selection in the 2020 draft in which Edwards, James Wiseman and LaMelo Ball were all considered candidates to go first overall. The Warriors had the No. 2 pick and thus did their due diligence on the top prospects, Edwards included.
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During a pre-draft workout, Kerr told Edwards the Warriors wouldn’t select him if they had the No. 1 pick. Let Edwards tell the story:
‘That’s all you’ve got?’
“Before he came, I thought I was like, working hard,” Edwards said of Kerr during a news conference ahead of Game 1. “And, like, when he came, I was going through the drills. And he kept stopping them, like, ‘That’s all you’ve got? That’s all you’ve got?’
“I’m like, ‘Bruh, I’m going hard as you want me to go. What you want me to do?’ I’m sweating crazy. He’s like, ‘You’ve got to see Steph and KD and Klay work out.'”
That wasn’t the end of Kerr’s and and Edwards’ pre-draft interaction.
‘We wouldn’t take you’
Edwards said he went out to dinner that night with a Warriors contingent that included Kerr and then-general manager Bob Myers. There, Edwards said Warriors brass told him they wouldn’t draft him if they had the first overall pick.
“They still was continuously telling me that ‘you didn’t work hard enough,'” Edwards continued. “‘If we had the No. 1 pick, we wouldn’t take you.'”
Steve Kerr’s words served as motivation for Anthony Edwards to step up his workouts and his game. Now Kerr will see the fruits of that work first-hand with a trip to the Western Conference finals at stake. David Berding/Getty Images)
(David Berding via Getty Images)
But there were no hard feelings. Edwards, instead, let Kerr’s and Myers’ words serve as motivation.
“Me and my trainer are driving home after dinner, and we’re just talking like, ‘We’ve got to pick it up,'” Edwards said. “‘I don’t know how. I don’t know what we’ve got to do. But we’ve got to pick it up.’
“After that, man, I became a mad man in the gym. I try to work til I’m tired, I’m exhausted.”
Kerr’s side of the story
Kerr was asked about the interaction and recalled his version of the story Monday during a virtual news conference from his hotel room.
“It’s a funny story,” Kerr said. “I didn’t think much of it at the time. I didn’t think I was doing anything special. … I think it was [Warriors owner] Joe Lacob, Bob Myers and me. And then Ant goes out to work out with his trainer. We’re the only five people in the gym.
“After 15 minutes of just watching him lazily shoot 15 footers, I thought, when’s the workout gonna start? And it turns out that was the workout. And I just went down there and I said, ‘Hey, can we see something more?’ And I think they were kind of surprised.”
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Kerr then recalled what happened at dinner that night.
“And then we had dinner that night,” Kerr continued. “Bob and I both talked about Steph and Kevin Durant and Klay and how hard they work, what it takes to be great. He was genuinely captivated by it, hearing stories about those guys.”
Kerr went on to say a workout with Edwards two weeks later was “way better.”
“At that point, we were sure,” Kerr said of the second workout with Edwards. “You could see he was just exploding with talent and charisma.”
Alas, the Timberwolves took Edwards No. 1 overall, and the Warriors never had a shot at him.
Kerr has since coached Edwards in the Paris Olympics and speaks glowingly about Edwards as a person and as a basketball player. Now he’ll have to game-plan against Edwards as Golden State looks to advance to the Western Conference finals.
