NBA playoffs have proven that Anthony Edwards is the top 7 in the NBA

In the NBA playoffs, the player debates are often obtained and lost. Lates are made in this phase, but the current hierarchy of the league is largely determined there.

And whether he realizes that or not, Anthony Edwards increases his game to meet the biggest moments of the post -season.

In the first round of these 2025 playoffs, he set 43 points in the series game against Los Angeles Lakers with five games. And after a few Speffe services in the second round against the Golden State Warriors were 36 for 36 years old on Saturday.

His goal helped the Minnesota Timberwolves to secure a 102-97 victory and a 2-1 lead in the conference semi-final. And in addition, it was another list for Edwards' Top Seven in the League “resume.

In today's NBA it is not easy to get in the way of this conversation.

In recent years, look at the regular season production by Nikola Jokić, Giannis Antetokounmpo and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander. Consider Jayson Tatum's consistency. Remember what a healthy Luka Dončić only did last season. Think about how much Stephen Curry bends a defense by simply running around the floor. This special post -season does a lot for the cases of Tyrese -Heliburton, Donovan Mitchell and Jalen Brunson.

The depth of the talent in the NBA is currently out of the charts. We are already over seven names for players with real top-seven arguments, and we haven't even mentioned LeBron James, Anthony Davis, Joel Embbiid and Kawhi Leonard. Victor Wembanyama may have to be there next season to cry out loud. If he could ever have a full season, it could probably be Zion Williamson too.

The list is absurd. And yet Edwards could be one of the names that they simply cannot cut out.

After his 36-point excursion on Saturday, he has up to 26.6 points, 8.6 rebounds, 5.3 assists and 1.5 steal in this post-season, but raw production does not really make justice.

Despite the opening of his three-point volume this regular season, Ants can still design in a freight train in a freight train and end on the edge like Prime Michael Jordan.

This combination is of course ridiculous. And that cannot be said that Edwards is the entire shooter and the floor spacing holder who is curry, or the entire Slasher who was MJ. But in the playoffs, at least in certain games, he has been proven that it is 85-90 percent of them each. At the same time. And that's pretty frightening, especially for a 23-year-old.

How should you defend that? If you aggressively try to take the three away, he will blow them past. Give any pillow for a trip and he can punish you from the three -point line.

He quickly developed into one of the most productive goal scorers in the league. And again he is almost always able to transform this into the playoffs.

Its average of the regular season in the regular season is 23.9 points. It is 27.5 in the off -season.

These are also not the only categories in which it is better. Its average values ​​for rebounds, assists and steals are higher in the playoffs.

All of this contributes to a career playoff box plus/minus (“… a basketball box-base-based metric, which appreciates the contribution of a basketball player to the team when this player is on the square”) of 7.0, which brings him to rather special company among active players.

Three of the above (LeBron, Kawhi and Curry) are all far beyond their prime numbers. Edwards didn't even hit his.

And while his game can never lead to the falling static lines that we often see from Jokić, Dončić and Giannis, he checks some boxes that they don't.

Ant is a better defender and productive isolation corer (from the scope) than Jokić. His defense and athletics also drew him off from Luka. His outer shots distinguished him from Giannis.

He must not be quite On the top level of the league with these three and SGA, he could reasonably be seen as the leader of the next.

And in order not to look down the street too far when Edwards meets in the final of the conference with Gilgeous-Alexander and deducts this surprise, we could enter the 2025-26 season and ask whether “Top Seven” is something conservative for Ant.