Chip Scoggins: Without Anthony Edwards, Chris Finch faces his toughest test with Wolves

Chip Scoggins, Star Tribune on Oct 28, 2026

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MINNEAPOLIS — The NBA tracks a statistic known as “gravity.” This measures how much attention a player commands from the defense, with and without the ball. It’s a metric that demonstrates a player’s influence on opening things up for teammates.

Anthony Edwards posted the NBA’s second-highest gravity rating last season, behind only Kevin Durant.

Timberwolves coach Chris Finch must channel his inner Sir Isaac Newton to figure out how basketball gravity works on his team now that Edwards will be sidelined for an extended period.

Edwards’ knee surgery throws the Wolves ecosystem completely out of whack. He is their alpha, their leading scorer, their go-to guy in go-to situations, their Mr. Gravity.

Edwards is a hooper’s contradiction. He scored 47 points the night before it was revealed he needed surgery on an injured knee.

The integration of LaMelo Ball had gone seamlessly and swimmingly the first week of the season. The Wolves came flying out of the gates, displaying chemistry, firepower and a highly entertaining style of play.

This injury news delivers an emotional blow and presents a strategic challenge that must be solved.

“We have great depth at that position,” president of basketball operations Tim Connelly said after shootaround Wednesday morning. “I’m confident in the guys we have.”

Everything will be reconfigured in Edwards’ absence. A new pecking order established. A shifting of roles and responsibilities. More weight hoisted upon different shoulders. Probably tweaks to style of play.

This will be Finch’s toughest coaching challenge as the Wolves’ bench boss. Good thing he’s become something of a coaching chameleon the past few years.

He had the task of pairing two centers — Karl-Anthony Towns and Rudy Gobert — on the floor together when the rest of the league was trending smaller.

That plan blew up when Towns was traded to New York for Julius Randle. Version 2.0 led to a different structure on offense.

Randle’s exit and Ball’s arrival swung the pendulum back the other way. From big and lumbering to small and fast.

Finch navigated those changes with a steady hand, tinkering and adjusting and fitting pieces together, all while keeping the Wolves in the contender conversation.

Edwards has been the one main constant, a superstar providing gravity to ever-changing blueprints.

Injuries caused Edwards to miss 21 games last season, but not all in one stretch. This will be different. He could miss up to two months, though a definitive timeline is difficult to determine this soon.

The Wolves play 29 games between now and the end of December, or 35% of their season. Edwards has proven to be a fast healer, and he treats recovery with the same ultra-competitive mindset as basketball games. Perhaps he returns sooner than expected.

Connelly noted that Edwards was itching to play Wednesday night against the Golden State Warriors.

The long-term health of his knee takes priority over everything else. Get it fixed and fully strengthened, then unleash Edwards for the final push.

To recalibrate on the court without him will be a communal undertaking.

“Tough to fill his shoes just for what he does on the floor for us,” guard Bones Hyland said. “Nobody can be like Ant. But we’ve got players who can step in and take over a game as well.”

Edwards averaged 26 shots per game through four games. Those will be distributed more widely. The assumption is that Ball will take on more of the scoring load, but this can’t become a case of hero Ball.

He is suddenly thrust into a different approach as the point guard, balancing being a distributor and organizer with the need to score more and, most likely, handle big shots in late-game situations.

Scoring responsibility should fall on everyone, though. Jaden McDaniels must continue to expand his offensive game. Ayo Dosunmu is a capable scorer. Jonathan Kuminga and Terrence Shannon Jr. will get more opportunities.

The Wolves still have enough talent, depth and versatility to remain competitive in the heavyweight Western Conference. They just have to stay afloat until Edwards returns.

Playoff seeding is not the end-all, be-all. A Wolves team that is healthy will be formidable regardless of seed.

“We’re going to miss Ant for sure, but it’s not going to be for long,” Hyland said. “We’re going to hold the fort down.”

An upbeat outlook to news that is an undeniable bummer for the team and fans. Two months minus Edwards will feel like an eternity. Finch has handled seismic roster changes deftly before, but this one is a subtraction without a corresponding addition. A massive subtraction.

The Wolves must find their balance without the superstar who provides gravitational pull and so much more.