Fin: The movie that made Anthony Edwards

Michael Jordan back on TV, the NBA Draft lottery is not rigged, an Inside the NBA documentary, Roundball Rock, and more in an all-basketball notes column.

Image: Netflix

The Minnesota Timberwolves, after about 20 years of crushing mediocrity and sometimes worse, are heading to the Western Conference Finals for the second straight year, after winning a second-round series against the Golden State Warriors.

It’s an exciting thing for the team that I grew up rooting for, which had experienced very little glory throughout its history. And because This is a Movie Newsletter, I want to focus on the movie debut of Anthony Edwards, the Wolves’ young star who’s often called “Ant.”

Back in 2022, Edwards starred in Hustle, the Adam Sandler Netflix movie in which Sandler played a scout of the Philadelphia 76ers. Edwards, at the time a 20-year-old NBA rookie, played Kermit Wilts, a rival player and villain who constantly trash-talks Bo Cruz (Juancho Hernangómez).

At first, before I saw the movie, I wasn’t clear on which Anthony Edwards was co-starring in Hustle- was it the guy who played Goose in Top Gun and starred on ER, or was it the basketball player? And how did Ant get around the Screen Actors Guild rules about not having the same name as another SAG member?

At any rate, the performance was memorable, and I found it fascinating that Edwards, right at the beginning of his career and before he had an established persona, was willing to play this cruel, trash-talking villain. He was playing a character who, while a basketball player, wasn’t just Anthony Edwards playing himself.

Ironically, the last time the Wolves had a superstar at this level, it was Kevin Garnett, who also starred in a movie, Uncut Gems, with Adam Sandler.

Edwards’ turn in Hustle is a much better performance than that of Ray Allen in Spike Lee’s He Got Game, also delivered when Allen was right at the beginning of his career and didn’t really have an established personality. In Space Jam, Michael Jordan just played Michael Jordan.

And speaking of MJ…

Jordan returns to NBC

NBC is getting the NBA back next year, after more than 20 years, and they made the surprising announcement last week that Michael Jordan, the best basketball player of all time and the signature player of the last era that the network had the NBA, will be part of the network’s coverage.