Anthony Edwards has been bombs away from downtown this season, and just over a week in he is making more 3-pointers than any other player in the league.
Can he maintain that pace and be the 3-point king of the league this season?
According to ESPN BET, Edwards is up to the second-shortest odds to lead the league in 3-pointers made per game at +750. He’s still a significant underdog to odds-on favorite Stephen Curry (-120), but his odds are a lot shorter on Friday than they were on Tuesday (+2000). So, if you believe the Ant Man can do it, now is the time to get in.
But, can he?
I say yes. Because leading the league in 3-point shooting is largely a volume accomplishment, and no one in the NBA has ever shot more 3-pointers per game than Edwards has this season.
Edwards is taking 13.3 3-pointers per game, ahead of Jayson Tatum (12.2 3PA), Tyrese Maxey (12.0) and LaMelo Ball (12.0) for this season. James Harden holds the NBA record with 13.2 3PA in the 2018-19 season. Harden and Curry have led the league in 3PA every season since the 2012-13 campaign.
The question becomes, will Edwards continue to shoot from 3-point range at such an incredibly high rate? Edwards’ career-high is 8.4 3PA back in the 2021-22 season, and last season he set his career-low with only 6.7 3PA.
Why Edwards is taking more 3s in 2024-25
A funny thing happened last season… the Celtics won the NBA Championship with a team that led the league in 3-point attempts with the second-most 3-pointers in NBA history. Edwards’ Timberwolves made the Western Conference Finals despite ranking 23rd in 3-point attempts and 17th in 3-pointers made, but their lack of volume from long-range was noted as part of the reason their offense couldn’t keep up with the elite.
Edwards seems to have taken that lesson to heart. He started demonstrating his new 3-point shooting rate in the Olympics, where a full half (25) of Edwards’ field goal attempts (50) came from behind the arc. While the international 3-point line is shorter than the NBA line by almost two feet, it was still impressive that Edwards was knocking down those looks at a 48% clip.
Edwards ramped up that 3-point pace even further during the NBA preseason, where 37 of his 56 field goal attempts came from behind the arc. He took 16 3-pointers in a game when he wasn’t even hitting them well, making only three (18.8 %) of his attempts as he kept firing away.
Early in the season, the Timberwolves rank seventh in the NBA in 3-point attempts per game and fifth in 3-pointers made per game, with the difference from last season almost solely due to Edwards’ increase. And Edwards is knocking down his looks, shooting what would-be a career-best 41.5% from deep.
What to expect out of Edwards
While the 3-point percentage could come down a bit over time, perhaps regressing to closer to the 36.3% he shot behind the arc the last two seasons, it also wouldn’t be shocking if his shot is just better this season. Edwards is known for working on his game and making marked improvements in the offseason, and he is still only 23 years old.
And, regardless of the percentage, it appears that Edwards’ increased volume of shots from downtown is likely to continue. The game has changed, and this is a copy-cat league. The Celtics’ success, just after the era when the Warriors used their long-range dominance to win four titles, has pushed the rest of the league to more and more shots from deep. The NBA as a whole is taking and making more 3-pointers this season than ever before, and it would appear that Edwards and the Timberwolves are leaning into the trend.
Edwards is leading the league at present with 5.5 3PG. Jordan Poole (5.0 3PG) and Buddy Hield (4.8 3PG) are second and third, but Hield both are shooting unsustainably high percentages of 57.1 3P% and 50.0 3P% respectively while averaging fewer than 10 attempts per game. Curry is dealing with an ankle issue that has kept him off the court, but he has only made more than five 3-pointers per game three times in his career, and hasn’t done it since the 2020-21 season.
So, will Edwards lead the league in 3-pointers made per game this season? While we won’t know that answer until April, he certainly seems more likely than 7-to-1 to achieve this. Which makes his +750 odds on ESPN BET strong value.
