The Minnesota Timberwolves hosted the Boston Celtics in TNT’s first Thursday night doubleheader of 2025. After reaching the Western Conference finals last season, the Timberwolves got off to a rocky start at 17-15. Within the NBA Host Ernie Johnson asked Charles Barkley what he was seeing from Minnesota.

Barkley has had his fair share of problems for the franchise, starting with the loss of Karl-Anthony Towns. He also criticized Rudy Gobert’s offense and claimed the team “screwed up” Naz Reid with the addition of Julius Randle, but his harshest criticism was directed at Anthony Edwards.

“I actually think Anthony Edwards has regressed in my opinion,” Barkley said. “Because he has become an outsider. He’s not as aggressive as he was last year.”

“Because I think he takes too many threes,” Barkley continued, while Shaquille O’Neal agreed. “Because Ernie is such a great player. If you’re guarding him, you want him to shoot threes. Because when he goes to the basket, he dunks people, he gets you in foul trouble. He will bring you to punishment.” earlier. If he shoots threes even though he makes them…”

And he does them. Edwards is shooting a career-high 41.5% on a career-high 9.7 attempts per game. He shoots at a higher rate than Steph Curry, with one fewer attempts per game. He shoots better from three than Kevin Durant on four more attempts per game. He shoots slightly better than Tyler Herro on exactly the same number of attempts per game.

That doesn’t seem to be the issue, but considering Edwards made just two of nine attempts in a 118-115 loss on Thursday, it’s hard to argue with that.