"I'm Kinda Sick That I Got It In Front Of Kobe, I Wish I Would Have Waited 100 Days" - Anthony Edwards Made NBA History Becoming The 3rd Youngest Player Ever To Score 10,000 Points
Tyler Clouse. Getty Images.As I've stated many times before, I am a sucker for NBA history. I don't care what it is or who makes it, if you do something historic, I'm in. Sorry if that's a hot take, I'm just a big fan of seeing cool shit
Giphy Images.The latest? Come on down Anthony Edwards!
At 24 years and 156 days, Anthony Edwards is now the 3rd youngest player to ever cross over the 10,000 point line. Hitting 10K is one of the first big time career milestones for a player to hit, and really it was only a matter of time before Ant got there. Now there is a difference between "fastest" and "youngest" to hit 10K, so while Ant is the 3rd youngest player ever to do it, it came in 412 total career games, which is still impressive, but a little further down the list
All time, it's the 28th fastest in terms of games played, and the 7th fastest among active players with Doncic being at 358, LeBron at 368, Embiid at 373, KD at 381, Trae Young at 390 and Donovan Mitchell at 410.
Either way, it's still wildly impressive to have done it at 24, and Ant has now become just the 3rd member of the Timberwolves to ever do it, joining KG and KAT. Pretty good!
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As one of the stars who will help usher the NBA into their next era once the group of LeBron/Steph/KD/Harden etc all finally retire, there's no denying that Anthony Edwards is ready to take that leap. While there are still parts of his game that need refininig like this ability to read and beat double teams, there's plenty of time for that to happen. Again, he's 24. Meanwhile, I do want to point out that we're witnessing a pretty ridiculous season through 31 games from Ant, to the point where he's pretty much putting up career highs across the board.
His 29.2 points are a career high
His 50.4% from the floor is a career high
His 41.2% from deep (on 8 3PA) is a career high
His 7.4 FTA is a career high
His 0.8 blocks are a career high
His 71% at the rim is a career high
His 47% from the midrange is a career high
The point is, we're seeing one of the most gifted scorers in the entire NBA not only dominate, but get better and better with each season
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The question now becomes, just how high can Ant climb on the all time rankings if he's already at 10K at 24? He's floated around 1900-2100 points these last few years, and we aren't even in his NBA prime seasons yet. He's someone that has played 79 games in each of the last 4 seasons, so durability isn't really a concern. Is it crazy to assume that he could average around these totals over the next 10+ seasons until his age 34 season? I don't think it's a stretch to say Ant has another 20,000 points left in the tank before it's all said and done, especially with the way he can score at all three levels.
Say that happens, that would make Ant one of the few players in NBA history to cross over the 30,000 point mark, something his favorite player (Kevin Durant) did not too long ago. James Harden is up next at 28,532, but after that there's really only Steph who has an outside shot in my opinion (26,192) when it comes to the old guard. Giannis could get there in theory (21K), but his injury history might catch up with him. Luka and Tatum both are off to solid starts with 13K points each, but there's a reason only 9 players in NBA history have ever joined the 30K point club. It's hard as shit.
But if we were to think of the next era of stars who could do it, I don't see how anyone could leave Anthony Edwards off the list. Crazy this was a player who people said didn't really care about basketball heading into the Draft and had a low motor. Is that one of the biggest misses in draft evaluation, maybe ever? I'd bet anything the Wolves are happy they didn't take the bait on that one, because this dude is pretty damn good