The maintenance plan is over in Minnesota. Anthony Edwards will undergo an arthroscopic procedure on his right knee and miss up to two months, Shams Charania reported for ESPN on Tuesday. Edwards carried a questionable tag with right knee injury maintenance into Monday's game in Cleveland, and the Timberwolves listed him the same way for Wednesday's home game against Golden State. Tuesday's reporting ended the guessing: the knee gets fixed instead of managed.
What he did on the bad knee is what makes this sting. Edwards was visibly favoring the right knee on Sunday against Toronto, grabbing at it after a fast-break dunk, and still finished with a game-high 26 points in 28 minutes. On Monday he played anyway: 41 minutes in Cleveland, a season-high 47 points on 19-of-34 shooting with 5 threes, 2 steals and 2 blocks. He tied the game at 121 with a three in overtime and hit another three at the buzzer for the final margin in a 127-125 loss. Jon Krawczynski reported Edwards was not made available after either game because he was in the training room getting treatment. Through four games he is averaging 33.3 points, 4.8 rebounds and 3.5 assists, and he owns the season's first two 40-point games.
The knee has a file, too. Edwards missed time late last season with inflammation in the same right knee and was diagnosed with patellofemoral pain syndrome, the runner's knee condition. He took about two months off in the summer to let both knees heal and chose rest over surgery. The pain was back within four games, and this time rest is not the prescription. An absence of up to two months points at a return around the end of December: Minnesota plays 27 games between Wednesday and December 27, plus an NBA Cup date still to be set.
So here is the fantasy ruling. Edwards goes into an IL spot today and stays there. You do not drop a top-five asset averaging 33 points a night for an absence that brings him back around the New Year, not in October. The only exception is a league with no IL spot and a bench that cannot carry a quiet slot for nine weeks, and even there you shop him at a discount before you ever cut him. The Fantasy Basketball HQ page is carrying the ruling and the replacement names in today's Injury Wire.
The minutes split two ways, and the reporting agrees on both names. Ayo Dosunmu is the expected starter at shooting guard: RotoWire and NBC Sports had him first in line while Edwards was a question mark, and he played 26 minutes in Cleveland on Monday. Terrence Shannon Jr. is the stream with the ceiling: 14 points, 4 rebounds and 5 assists in 24 minutes off the bench on Monday, and his role grows whether he starts or not. Bones Hyland picks up the leftover backcourt minutes. The bigger storyline is LaMelo Ball: with Edwards out, Ball's usage and assist ceiling both climb, and his managers just got a bigger engine. Ball is not a waiver name. He is the reason the waiver names in Minnesota matter a little less than they would somewhere else.
