CJ McCollum was straightforward about Minnesota Timberwolves star Anthony Edwards in 2020.
The veteran guard encouraged Anthony Edwards to work on expanding his shooting range on the Load Management Podcast.
“He better work on that jumper, you can’t run in the West,” McCollum said about the high-flying guard, who was known to posterize opponents in the paint. Since then, Edwards has expanded his game, and became one of the league’s most talented scorers.
The old quote was brought up from a Timberwolves-centric account on the social media platform, X, and McCollum laughed it off and admitted that he’s seen a lot of improvement from the star guard.
via @CJMcCollum: He def worked on his jumper
Back in early January, Edwards received strong compliments from McCollum, who was playing for the Washington Wizards at the time.
"You're not stopping him. He's getting 30 [points] a night. A bad night is 28, right? So, I just think it's about making it difficult. Making him shoot tough twos. Not let him get his threes off... Tonight he's scored at three levels like he's done all year and he got five over his average," McCollum said of Edwards.
As a rookie in 2020-2021, Edwards averaged 19.3 points as a 41 percent shooter from the field, while knocking down 32 percent of his threes.
Fast forward to year six, he’s averaging 29.6 points per game, while shooting nearly 50 percent from the field, and hitting on 39 percent of his threes. For the fourth year in a row, Edwards was deemed an All-Star player in the Western Conference.
There’s no question that Edwards is one of the best young stars in the game. While McCollum wasn’t necessarily doubting Edwards early on, he’s certainly not questioning the young star’s talent as a scorer years later.
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