After 4 years of playing in the NBA, two-time All-Star defender Anthony Edwards has only been a substitute 17 times in a total of 281 matches.

This number includes 209 consecutive matches in which “Ant Man” appeared in the starting lineup. However, the above mentioned streak was interrupted for a rather ungainly reason in the Minnesota Timberwolves’ 119-114 victory over Portland Trail. Blazers on the morning of March 5.

Because he arrived at the field nearly 2 hours late compared to the presentation time, Anthony Edwards was unable to be present when the match started and had to come on the field from the bench. He waited at the referee’s table and entered the field at the first dead ball situation 35 seconds into the match.

This rare situation happened just 3 days after Anthony Edwards had to leave the field midway through last weekend. At that time, the player born in 2001 only played two rounds and then immediately left the stadium to get to the hospital in time to welcome his first child.

It is unclear whether there is a connection between this and the story of arriving late to the field on March 5, just know that Edwards was criticized a lot by fans when he could not start the match as scheduled.

“ With an attitude like this, it’s hard to consider Anthony Edwards as a top star or the new face of the NBA no matter how good he is, ” quoted a comment on the X platform (previously is Twitter).

“Coach Chris Finch just talked about Timberwolves players having to focus more to avoid losing their advantage in the rankings. Then just two days after the coach’s above statement, the team’s number 1 star arrived late to the field. It’s difficult to understand,” another comment about the incident was quoted as saying.

The Minnesota Timberwolves did not mention the distraction of Edwards and won 119-114 against the Portland Trail Blazers. It should be noted that the Blazers are at the bottom of the Western rankings and are missing a series of key players, while the Timberwolves are in the leading group of the entire NBA.

Individually, Anthony Edwards had 13 points and 6 assists in 35 minutes of play. Sharing about not playing from the beginning, the Timberwolves star said quite sparingly: “I didn’t pay attention to the time.”

After a period of dominating the West and monopolizing the top spot, the “wolf pack” is showing signs of lack of concentration with 3 losses in the last 6 appearances. They let the Oklahoma City Thunder catch up and only kept the No. 1 position in the rankings after OKC’s unexpected defeat against the Los Angeles Lakers this morning.