February 5, 2025 • 24 mins
On today’s episode, Jason discusses all the latest scuttlebutt surrounding Kevin Durant's uncertain future with the Phoenix Suns heading into the upcoming NBA Trade Deadline. Plus, Minnesota Star Tribune reporter and author Chris Hine swings by to discuss his upcoming book on Anthony Edwards, why the Minnesota Timberwolves have taken such a sizable step back this season, how the Luka Doncic trade to Los Angeles might impact Edwards' future in Minnesota and much more!
Follow Jason on Twitter and Instagram. Click here to subscribe, rate and review all of the latest Straight Fire with Jason McIntyre podcasts!
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
This is Straight Fire with Jason McIntyre.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
What is up, straight Firefam, It's me Jason McIntyre, Straight
Fire for Wednesday, February fourth. We're in the throes of
Super Bowl Week, but there aren't a million storylines to discuss.
So on today's podcast, we have a really good guest,
gentleman by the name of Chris Hine from the Star
Tribune in Minnesota. He's been covering Anthony Edwards for a
(00:33):
few years and he wrote a book about Anthony Edwards.
I think you're gonna like this. Anthony Edwards potentially destined
to be the next big star American anyway in the NBA,
and you know they've had a little bit of a
pullback this season. Not great, but listen, when you lose
Kral Anthony Town's your second best player, you got to
kind of rejigger things on the fly with some new players.
(00:54):
So I'm not stunned at this. I guess it was
a bad pick to go to the finals for me.
They won't make the finals this year, but Anthony Edwards
still just an incredible talent. I think you're gonna love
this interview. However, before we get to the interview, I
must say that there is a developing situation in the NBA.
So I had to record this late Tuesday night. I'm
(01:17):
holding out as long as possible because I have to
catch an early flight on Wednesday. And this Kevin Durant
stuff is getting crazy. Okay, we talked about it last week. Again,
Sometimes you get lucky, you throw stuff out there.
Speaker 3 (01:31):
You try to read the tea leaves.
Speaker 2 (01:32):
And this Kevin Durant stuff that we talked about last week.
Could he be on the market after the flurry of
Luca traded, dearon Fox traded, Zach Lavine traded. It's like, okay,
who's left Jimmy Butler? But that's not happening. And all
of a sudden you start to hear rumblings Monday, Kevin
Durant on the move.
Speaker 3 (01:50):
We talked about it.
Speaker 2 (01:51):
Then Tuesday night, what like an hour before he was
set to face Oklahoma City, Kevin Durant is doubtful to
play against the Thunder with what they're calling an ankle injury.
I'll let you speculate on that one, but I didn't
see anything in his prior performance that indicated that he
had a significant enough ankle injury. What is bizarre is
(02:13):
that Kevin Durant could be headed back to the Golden
State Warriors. That's what's insane. Now, Will somebody else swoop
in and make a move on him? That remains to
be seen. Would Jimmy Butler be happy if suddenly Kevin
Durant showed up in Miami.
Speaker 3 (02:26):
I have no idea, no clue. I don't even know
that that's feasible.
Speaker 2 (02:30):
The Sun's problem right now is that they're near the
bottom of the table when it comes to the playoffs.
Speaker 3 (02:36):
You don't want to be paying.
Speaker 2 (02:38):
A fat ass luxury tax bill when you've got Kevin Durant,
Devin Booker and Bradley Beal and you do not even
get to the playoffs. You just don't want that.
Speaker 3 (02:47):
So do you move off?
Speaker 2 (02:48):
Durant, get as much of a haul as you can now?
Internet sluice. By the way, when digging deep, the.
Speaker 3 (02:53):
Golden State Warriors posted, you know some stuff.
Speaker 2 (02:56):
I guess they have a partnership with American Airlines and
they posted all the getting on airplane individual shots, And
of course the Peanut Gallery looks closely at the photos
and they're like, wait a minute, wait a minute, nobody healed.
Speaker 4 (03:10):
No.
Speaker 2 (03:10):
Andrew Wiggins no, Kevon Looney. You know, if you add
those salaries together and people are thinking something is afoot
regarding a possible trade between the Warriors and Suns. It's
rarely that easy. But again, this will be posted, you know,
seven am tomorrow morning. By then, Kevin Durant could be
on the move. I'm always looking out for like a
(03:31):
sleeper team with the Houston Rockets blow up? What they
got to rent Kevin Durant to make a run?
Speaker 3 (03:37):
I doubt it. I don't see that happening.
Speaker 2 (03:40):
You know, we saw the Clippers look quite bad against
the Lakers in the first half at least tonight, and
it's like, do the Clippers get involved? Like who else
would make a move on Kevin Durant? Who's renting Kevin
Durant in hopes of a push? I mean, you want
to get crazy. So all this Miles Turner talk from
the independent Indiana Pacers. What if the Indian Pacer said, hey, hey,
(04:01):
you guys want a big Probably not, but you're gonna
do something for Kevin Durant, And all of a sudden,
Kevin Durant is playing with Tyre's Halliburton and Company and
they try to make a move in the East, I
don't know anything's possible. I'll just say this, the West
appears kind of sort of ish, wide open. When the Timberwolves,
the Kings, the Sons and the Warriors, or you're playing teams.
(04:24):
The Mavericks, by the way, due to another loss, have
fallen out of the top ten. Things are getting crazy.
We know Wemby and Fox, once they get together, they're
going to make a push. It's getting wacky, wild kool
Aid style in the NBA. All right, without further ado,
let's get to today's guest, Chris Heine, author of ant
The Incredible Journey of NBA rising star Anthony Edwards.
Speaker 1 (04:47):
Fox Sports Radio has the best sports talk lineup in
the nation. Catch all of our shows at Foxsports Radio
dot com and within the iHeartRadio app. Search FSR to
listen live. You know a guy, Jason likes to think
he knows everything when it comes to sports.
Speaker 3 (05:06):
I know what sports fans want, but for.
Speaker 1 (05:08):
Everything he doesn't. He knows a guy who does.
Speaker 4 (05:11):
Let's just say I know a guy who knows a
guy who knows another guy.
Speaker 2 (05:16):
All right, let's welcome into straight fire a new guest.
He has written a book on Anthony Edwards. He's been
around the team for what seven eight years now. Chris
Hine from the Start tribute, Chris, how you doing, man?
Speaker 4 (05:27):
Man, I'm good. Jason here you thank you for having me.
I appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (05:30):
Yeah. No.
Speaker 4 (05:31):
No.
Speaker 2 (05:31):
As soon as Rob was like, hey, this guy wrote
a book on Anthony Edwards, I was like, oh goodness, gracious,
I'm in uh just because the NBA is so crazy
right now. Obviously on the heels of the Luca Anthony Davis,
Trade Yeaddaron Fox going to the Spurs. There's now chatter
Jimmy Butler could be going somewhere. You got the Kevin
Durant stuff starting to rebubble up. And here it is,
(05:52):
you wrote a book on a guy who, what like
maybe seven months ago they were saying could be the
face of the league. It's it's all crazy. Let's start
with how the book came about. Tell us how how
what would you approached Edwards about it?
Speaker 4 (06:05):
Yeah? I think it was it was about that seven
month ago period in the playoffs when you know they
beat the Phoenix Suns and ant highlights and press conference
clips were just all over your social media feeds, and
and my publisher on the book. Harper Collins was interested
in doing the book, and I give a lot of
credit to my friend Joe Perry. He and I grew up,
(06:26):
grew up in the same small town in Pennsylvania. Oh
what down in Pennsylvania, West Pittston, Pennsylvania. It's called We
played a little league. We Hadds, very small, five thousand
people or so, two hours north of Philly. Okay. So
we grew up playing little league together. And he entered
the literary world and became an agent, and he and
I connected with each other. He heard that Harper Collins
(06:48):
wanted a book on Anthony Edwards, and here we are
all these these months later. That's how it all kind
of came about, very very quickly.
Speaker 2 (06:55):
Actually, So Edwards had to talk trash to Kevin Durant
and I think they swept this up ones and then
they took down the Nuggets, and I'm sure that's when
things really ramped up. Huh.
Speaker 4 (07:05):
Yeah, it was before Game seven. I was actually getting
ready to fly to Denver for Game seven, and so
it was that day, really like the day before Game seven,
that I had the first conversation about it. And then
soon after that it became a reality and then I
just basically spent the entire summer trying to report it.
I went down to Atlanta for a month where he's from,
(07:27):
tried to get to know as many people as I
could from his youth. Obviously around the team, I've had
relationships and connections with people over the seven years i've
covered the Timberwolves. So that's the book is kind of
melding his upbringing, his young life with his NBA life
and life story of Anthony Edwards.
Speaker 3 (07:47):
That's wild.
Speaker 2 (07:47):
I remember we had a guy on our podcast before
the draft where it was Aunt and LaMelo, and there
were questions about whether or not Anthony Edwards. You know,
does this guy really love basketball? He's talking about foot
Apparently he was an amazing high school football player or
had the potential as like a youth guy, to be
an awesome football player, and there were questions about it.
And I'm like, listen, guys, have I didn't watch a
(08:09):
billion Georgia games, but I watched enough that holy kn't
how this guy's electric and he's going to be awesome.
Speaker 3 (08:16):
Now I didn't think he would be this good.
Speaker 2 (08:18):
But during your research, did you find that it was
like a football or basketball decision? For him.
Speaker 4 (08:24):
Yeah, that's that's a good question, because people in his
life from a young age were very focused on his
football career, and everybody thought he was going to be
a football star, that that was going to be his route.
He grew up playing for the Atlanta Vikings, like this
renowned youth program in the Atlanta area, and he was
a star player. You go back and watch some of
his YouTube highlights, and I compare him to like Derrick Henry.
(08:46):
He's massive, he towers over people. He'll truck defensive backs
to farm them, you know. And he was He played
primarily running back back then, and that's where everybody thought
his future was going to be. They didn't think he
was going to be a basketball play And then right
around the time he was thirteen fourteen, he kind of
switched gears and he became a basketball player. He started
(09:07):
getting in the gym a lot more. It became addictive
to him to get in the gym. And so I
think one of the things that this book will answer
is why that reputation developed about him not loving the
game of basketball, and how that came about during the
draft process, and why people in his past and people
(09:27):
with the Timberwolves when you ask them about that, they
essentially laughed off. They said that couldn't be farther from
the truth about his desire to work, his competitiveness, and
how often he's in the gym, which is honestly a
very relevant conversation given what just happened with the Luca
Donchich trade and how the Mavericks kind of felt about
his you know, fitness or whatever you want to believe
(09:50):
coming out of the Dallas Mavericks right now, it's a
very relevant conversation to how the Minnesota Timberwolves view Anthony
Edwards and his work ethic and his habits and how
that has developed the time you know, he was a
prospect to his fifth season in the NBA and the
changes that he's undergone since then. The book kind of
delves into all of that.
Speaker 2 (10:09):
So it could have been just some opo research from
like the LaMelo Ball or whoever was like battling him
to be a top five seat.
Speaker 3 (10:16):
Could have been like, hey, this guy Anthony Edwards, you
know you don't like I don't know if.
Speaker 4 (10:19):
It was OPO research from any other camp, but there's
a there was a workout that he had with the
Golden State Warriors that he and has been on the
record about over the years. Even Steve Kerr has gone
on the record about that it was a bad workout
pre draft that he had because the Warriors had the
number two pick that year. That was the year, that
was the year they took Wivesman. Yeah, so the Warriors
had number two, they work out, and he had a
(10:42):
terrible workout, And so I think that's a little bit
of where this reputation came from. But as as you'll
see in the book, this was the COVID draft. Like
the draft had gotten delayed multiple times because of COVID,
which meant workouts got delayed. The whole process just got
you know, thrown into the future, like six months ahead
(11:02):
of when it would normally take place. So that whole process.
One of the chapters in the book just deals primarily
with the draft process. That really took a toll on
ants like physical and mental well being at the time
and that of his camp, and that contributed to that
workout in Golden State, which then led to this reputation
(11:22):
of he doesn't work hard enough. He you know, he
doesn't love the game of basketball. But really it was
a product of COVID essentially is what it boils down
to in the end, and just that having a major
impact on the way he liked to work out and
what he could do during that time.
Speaker 2 (11:38):
It's interesting because the NFL Draft, I'm pretty sure the
COVID Draft was the one where every quarterback was it
was like Trey Lance, Justin Field, Zach Wilson. It also
was just a total bot even Trevor Lawrence has kind
of struggled so that that year kind of I guess
you could give teams a pass for not.
Speaker 3 (11:54):
Believing in him.
Speaker 2 (11:54):
But I am curious when you approached Edwards about the book,
like how did he take young guy? I'm sure you
know wants to craft his own narrative, but like, did
he instantly try to shut it down or tell people
not to talk to you?
Speaker 4 (12:07):
No, he didn't do that. I approached him, I talked
to some people close to him first before I actually
mentioned it to him. I got to first mention it
to him during Team USA workouts in Las Vegas. I
had a very very fat conversation with him about it
this summer in Las Vegas, and he basically said, essentially
go get it was his word. Now. He didn't sit
(12:30):
down for me with me separately for this. I've interviewed
him many times over the years in the course of
doing my job, and so I've used all those interviews,
you know, in the book obviously to represent his voice.
But he didn't shut it down.
Speaker 2 (12:44):
You know.
Speaker 4 (12:44):
He all the people that are kind of close to him,
you know, friends, associates, his business manager, Justin hallme, people
from back in Atlanta that he's close with, people from Georgia,
you know, people that are still very close to him.
I didn't get a no from anybody else, you know,
and so he didn't shut it down. He didn't, like
I said, he didn't sit down with me specifically for
this project. But he also didn't shut it down either.
(13:07):
And I think people around him are also very excited
that this is coming out and they're going to get
to see a lot of facets of his story.
Speaker 2 (13:14):
That's pretty awesome. I think I've told his story on
the pod before. But I was covering high school hoops
back in the day and j R. Smith was blowing
up in New Jersey and I was covering his AAU
team a lot. They had so many Division IE players,
and I thought, like, this guy's worth a book. He
was ticketed to go to North Carolina and his family
was on board everything.
Speaker 3 (13:33):
I would go to his games. It was awesome.
Speaker 2 (13:35):
And then finally, as like the McDonald's All American games
start rolling around, his AA coach comes up to me.
He's like, adjacent, there's no book, it's not happening.
Speaker 3 (13:44):
I'm sorry. I was just like what, like, yeah, he's
going to the NBA watch. I was like, oh, don't
report this.
Speaker 2 (13:50):
And then next thing, you know, like he's on a
private jet and all this time I was like, oh damn,
and I missed out on it.
Speaker 3 (13:54):
But I understand, Hey, these guys, it's Anthony Edwards's story.
Speaker 2 (14:00):
You know, they don't always trust journalists, you know, because,
as you know right now, trust for journalists is kind
of low.
Speaker 3 (14:08):
It's just not great.
Speaker 4 (14:09):
It's really hard in this day and age, especially in
the sports world, and you're dealing with, you know, kind
of millennials and Gen Z athletes who as a news
as a traditional kind of newspaper beat reporter that I
am and have been for fifteen years now, you want
to try to separate yourself from the noise that they
see on their phone of social media, you know, to
(14:32):
to kind of basically say I'm not an Instagram meme
person or somebody who's gonna, you know, just tweet stuff
about you, like I'm here to report stories, get to
know you, get to know your story. And so I
think over the years, Ant has seen that a little bit,
and other players have seen that in my work. I
did a big story on Aunt in twenty twenty two,
(14:54):
which was kind of a precursor to the book, and
I did it for the paper, and I went down
to Atlanta for a weekend and basically wrote essentially a
preview of the book about his youth, and so that
served as kind of the basis. And so from that
I developed like relationships with him and his people that
are close to him and those that knew him growing
(15:15):
up that I was able to go back to when
it was time to do this book and just kind
of expand on everything that I had reported three years ago.
Speaker 1 (15:24):
Fox Sports Radio has the best sports talk lineup in
the nation. Catch all of our shows at Foxsports Radio
dot com and within the iHeartRadio app search FSR to
listen live.
Speaker 3 (15:36):
Edwards has an amazing story to you know.
Speaker 2 (15:38):
He had lost I believe his mom and grandma when
he was a youth and it was just like in
a quick timespan and you know, I guess he was
raised by his sister. You know, how do you think
that experience as a youth kind of shaped him as
a person.
Speaker 4 (15:53):
So, yeah, there's that's definitely covered in the book. Is
about seven months apart. He lost his mom first and
then his grandma, their second, in about a seven month
span when he was thirteen years old. And you know,
that's that's the third chapter of the book is where
we get into that and it shaped him as a
person because that was the moment of his life where
(16:16):
it clicked in for him how much he needed to work.
And that's where this competitive drive, this insatiable appetite to
get in the gym, that it really started to take
off from that point forward. And people around him at
the time will say in the book, like, you know,
for better or for worse, that's how he processed things.
(16:38):
That's how he got over what happened to him. You know,
whether he knew it, whether he was conscious of it
or not, that was how he processed what happened to him.
When he was thirteen years old, he just started getting
in the gym. He was competitive, he would just want
to be in the gym all the time, working out
with his trainer and coach, Justin Holland, who's still close
with today, you know, working out with his best friend
(17:00):
and Nick Maddox in high school, who he's still close
with today. And he still keeps that same circle of
people who helped him get through that time close to
him today. It's a very tight knit circle of people
that he trusts. Not a lot of people have entered
his life since he entered the NBA. It's a lot
of people that knew him from back then in Georgia,
(17:21):
and the book will also kind of highlight some of
them as well in the role that they played and
helping him get through his adolescence and teenage years.
Speaker 3 (17:30):
I've got to ask about this whole face of the
league thing.
Speaker 2 (17:33):
It the NBA fans and media, they're desperate for an
American star. John moranc kind of went sideways. Zion Williamson's
eating his way out of the league. Europeans are dominating.
We need like an American star to be the face
of the sport. After they took down Denver, everybody started
pushing Anthony Edwards kind of struggled there against Dallas in
(17:53):
the series, and now he's followed it up with You know,
he's been good, but not like other worldly this season.
Do you think it was too much too soon? I mean,
he's what twenty two, twenty three years three?
Speaker 3 (18:03):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (18:04):
One thing I've learned about covering the NBA is twenty three,
even though he's in his fifth season, twenty three is
still very young in NBA years. When it comes to
where we expect athletes and NBA players to be peaking
and hitting the peak of their powers, we tend to
think of it more as like the late twenties, right
like twenty seven, twenty eight to twenty nine years old.
(18:25):
These tend to be the peak years of an NBA
player's performance. So at twenty three, he's still got a
lot of room to grow as a player and you know,
as as a person off the court as well. So
when you make the conference finals at twenty three, it's
not unexpected that you're gonna struggle, especially against Luka Doncic
(18:46):
who was twenty five, And in NBA years, that two
year difference between twenty three and twenty five is a
big difference. Having that extra two seasons under your belt
is actually I've learned a huge thing. You go back
through recent NBA history and there's not a lot of
players who are in their early twenties that are threatening
for titles. It doesn't really happen that much. It's only
(19:08):
when you get to that twenty seven, twenty eight years old.
I think you can go back and look and like
Steph Curry wins his first title at twenty seven, Lebron
was twenty seven when he won his first title. I'm
pretty sure I can correct me if I'm wrong on that,
But that's about the time that even those guys started
winning their first title. So maybe it was a little
too much too soon. But when you think about the
(19:29):
arc of an NBA Superstars career, he's still got plenty
of prime years ahead of him. That got twenty three
you're going to look back on and say, Wow, he
mastered the game in a way that he didn't quite
have it twenty two or twenty three. That's how That's
how it goes on the NBA sometimes.
Speaker 2 (19:45):
Now I'm going to wrap up with calling for a
conclusion here. This is tough, but like Luca got traded
to the Lakers and I'm my thing is okay? Over
under one and a half titles for Luca Donches with
the Lakers and a lot most people have taken the under,
but I'm not going to be down in Luca when
it comes to Anthony Edwards. Listen, man, this it's going
(20:05):
to be a tall order to build a championship team
in Minnesota. We could argue they step back trading towns,
but that's a short term view. If I had to
say over under half a title for Anthony Edwards in Minnesota,
in Minnesota being the key, where would you lean on that?
Speaker 4 (20:23):
Oh? Man, that's a tough one. Normally as a beat reporter,
I don't get into the prediction business, but I'll you know,
just given the odds, I would probably still take the under.
But just because it's so uncertain and a lot of
that is out of his hands quite frankly. You know,
(20:43):
you need, you know, a reliable two three whatever, and
that's on the GM, that's on the right, you know,
whatever circumstance it is, right, It's just it's just so
hard to get to that mountaintop. And if there's a
dominant team that becomes dynam as stick in the league
or in the West, you know, butting your head up
(21:04):
against that every year could be tough, and it'd be
no discredit to you as a star or the Timberls
even as an organization. I just think the odds of
getting there are just so long to begin with that
I probably just take the safe play and say, under.
Speaker 2 (21:20):
I just thought of when listening to that, and you know,
like it's out of his hands. You said, do you
think Ant is the kind of guy that would take
it in his hands and ask for a trade?
Speaker 3 (21:29):
I mean, before you answer, we've seen.
Speaker 4 (21:31):
Doubtless crazy things happen in the NBA, right, yeah.
Speaker 2 (21:34):
Yeah, yeah, So this idea that like Ant is happy, sure,
great now, but I don't know. I mean, we just
saw Luka Doncicic get traded. Now, he didn't ask for
a trade that we know of, But like Jimmy Butler,
Kyrie Irving, I mean, you go down the list, anybody
who's anybody is basically asked out. I don't know what's
your sense on Anthony Edwards in Minnesota.
Speaker 4 (21:53):
So this is what I wrote about at the time
of the town's trade and one of the reasons why
I think the wolves made the town's trade in this
era of the second Apron and cap flexibility and punitive
luxury tax measures and all that is I think the
way that the Timberwolves wouldever lose to Anthony Edwards. He
loves it in Minnesota. He doesn't mind being in Minnesota.
(22:16):
He's not going to go chasing the larger market of
New York or LA. That's not who he is as
a person. I firmly believe that. But the way you
lose Anthony Edwards is not having a winner or a
contender around him. So if you're plotting out what your
team looks like four or five years from now, when
Anthony Edwards is kind of in this same twenty six
twenty seven year old window that say deeron Fox was
(22:37):
in in Sacramento and asks out right, that's how you
lose him is if you don't have a serious contender
four or five years from now when it's time to
make these decisions. So taking us maybe a slight step
back organizationally with the towns trade, but being able to
have flexibility three in that three to five year window
(22:58):
that I think is what they're looking at, and being
able to retool a team around Anthony Edwards as he
enters that prime of his career is really what the
organization was looking at.
Speaker 2 (23:09):
That's good, so I would totally agree with that. But
that's how Lebron left Cleveland. He didn't want to leave.
They just couldn't build a contender around him the first time.
Remember it was like, hey, here's Antoine Jamison and thirty
five year old check go.
Speaker 3 (23:20):
Go go kick down the Super Celtics. Like okay, that's
not happening.
Speaker 4 (23:23):
So sign yeah, yep, I was going to say, what
these second apron roster building measures that take place, That's
very much reality for teams that enter that second apron,
So it was definitely on their minds for sure.
Speaker 2 (23:35):
Great stuff, Chris, and looking forward to the When does
the book come out?
Speaker 4 (23:38):
June third is our release date. Pre Orders are available
on Amazon anywhere that you can buy books, no matter
what your preferred seller is. It should be up there.
And appreciate the support and I think people will enjoy
it on a basketball level and a non basketball level
as well.
Speaker 3 (23:53):
Did they kind of time it thinking, oh, NBA Finals,
We were.
Speaker 4 (23:57):
Trying to get it out, you know, kind of in
time for the postseason, not necessarily the finals, but at
least for this postseason run. That was the thinking.
Speaker 3 (24:04):
Yeah, I like it. There's always a chance, you know.
I think they got a shot. Very fun. Congrats on
the book Man and thanks for dropping by.
Speaker 4 (24:11):
Thank you for having me Jas, I really appreciate it.
This is Straight Fire with Jason McIntyre.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
What is up, straight Firefam, It's me Jason McIntyre, Straight
Fire for Wednesday, February fourth. We're in the throes of
Super Bowl Week, but there aren't a million storylines to discuss.
So on today's podcast, we have a really good guest,
gentleman by the name of Chris Hine from the Star
Tribune in Minnesota. He's been covering Anthony Edwards for a
(00:33):
few years and he wrote a book about Anthony Edwards.
I think you're gonna like this. Anthony Edwards potentially destined
to be the next big star American anyway in the NBA,
and you know they've had a little bit of a
pullback this season. Not great, but listen, when you lose
Kral Anthony Town's your second best player, you got to
kind of rejigger things on the fly with some new players.
(00:54):
So I'm not stunned at this. I guess it was
a bad pick to go to the finals for me.
They won't make the finals this year, but Anthony Edwards
still just an incredible talent. I think you're gonna love
this interview. However, before we get to the interview, I
must say that there is a developing situation in the NBA.
So I had to record this late Tuesday night. I'm
(01:17):
holding out as long as possible because I have to
catch an early flight on Wednesday. And this Kevin Durant
stuff is getting crazy. Okay, we talked about it last week. Again,
Sometimes you get lucky, you throw stuff out there.
Speaker 3 (01:31):
You try to read the tea leaves.
Speaker 2 (01:32):
And this Kevin Durant stuff that we talked about last week.
Could he be on the market after the flurry of
Luca traded, dearon Fox traded, Zach Lavine traded. It's like, okay,
who's left Jimmy Butler? But that's not happening. And all
of a sudden you start to hear rumblings Monday, Kevin
Durant on the move.
Speaker 3 (01:50):
We talked about it.
Speaker 2 (01:51):
Then Tuesday night, what like an hour before he was
set to face Oklahoma City, Kevin Durant is doubtful to
play against the Thunder with what they're calling an ankle injury.
I'll let you speculate on that one, but I didn't
see anything in his prior performance that indicated that he
had a significant enough ankle injury. What is bizarre is
(02:13):
that Kevin Durant could be headed back to the Golden
State Warriors. That's what's insane. Now, Will somebody else swoop
in and make a move on him? That remains to
be seen. Would Jimmy Butler be happy if suddenly Kevin
Durant showed up in Miami.
Speaker 3 (02:26):
I have no idea, no clue. I don't even know
that that's feasible.
Speaker 2 (02:30):
The Sun's problem right now is that they're near the
bottom of the table when it comes to the playoffs.
Speaker 3 (02:36):
You don't want to be paying.
Speaker 2 (02:38):
A fat ass luxury tax bill when you've got Kevin Durant,
Devin Booker and Bradley Beal and you do not even
get to the playoffs. You just don't want that.
Speaker 3 (02:47):
So do you move off?
Speaker 2 (02:48):
Durant, get as much of a haul as you can now?
Internet sluice. By the way, when digging deep, the.
Speaker 3 (02:53):
Golden State Warriors posted, you know some stuff.
Speaker 2 (02:56):
I guess they have a partnership with American Airlines and
they posted all the getting on airplane individual shots, And
of course the Peanut Gallery looks closely at the photos
and they're like, wait a minute, wait a minute, nobody healed.
Speaker 4 (03:10):
No.
Speaker 2 (03:10):
Andrew Wiggins no, Kevon Looney. You know, if you add
those salaries together and people are thinking something is afoot
regarding a possible trade between the Warriors and Suns. It's
rarely that easy. But again, this will be posted, you know,
seven am tomorrow morning. By then, Kevin Durant could be
on the move. I'm always looking out for like a
(03:31):
sleeper team with the Houston Rockets blow up? What they
got to rent Kevin Durant to make a run?
Speaker 3 (03:37):
I doubt it. I don't see that happening.
Speaker 2 (03:40):
You know, we saw the Clippers look quite bad against
the Lakers in the first half at least tonight, and
it's like, do the Clippers get involved? Like who else
would make a move on Kevin Durant? Who's renting Kevin
Durant in hopes of a push? I mean, you want
to get crazy. So all this Miles Turner talk from
the independent Indiana Pacers. What if the Indian Pacer said, hey, hey,
(04:01):
you guys want a big Probably not, but you're gonna
do something for Kevin Durant, And all of a sudden,
Kevin Durant is playing with Tyre's Halliburton and Company and
they try to make a move in the East, I
don't know anything's possible. I'll just say this, the West
appears kind of sort of ish, wide open. When the Timberwolves,
the Kings, the Sons and the Warriors, or you're playing teams.
(04:24):
The Mavericks, by the way, due to another loss, have
fallen out of the top ten. Things are getting crazy.
We know Wemby and Fox, once they get together, they're
going to make a push. It's getting wacky, wild kool
Aid style in the NBA. All right, without further ado,
let's get to today's guest, Chris Heine, author of ant
The Incredible Journey of NBA rising star Anthony Edwards.
Speaker 1 (04:47):
Fox Sports Radio has the best sports talk lineup in
the nation. Catch all of our shows at Foxsports Radio
dot com and within the iHeartRadio app. Search FSR to
listen live. You know a guy, Jason likes to think
he knows everything when it comes to sports.
Speaker 3 (05:06):
I know what sports fans want, but for.
Speaker 1 (05:08):
Everything he doesn't. He knows a guy who does.
Speaker 4 (05:11):
Let's just say I know a guy who knows a
guy who knows another guy.
Speaker 2 (05:16):
All right, let's welcome into straight fire a new guest.
He has written a book on Anthony Edwards. He's been
around the team for what seven eight years now. Chris
Hine from the Start tribute, Chris, how you doing, man?
Speaker 4 (05:27):
Man, I'm good. Jason here you thank you for having me.
I appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (05:30):
Yeah. No.
Speaker 4 (05:31):
No.
Speaker 2 (05:31):
As soon as Rob was like, hey, this guy wrote
a book on Anthony Edwards, I was like, oh goodness, gracious,
I'm in uh just because the NBA is so crazy
right now. Obviously on the heels of the Luca Anthony Davis,
Trade Yeaddaron Fox going to the Spurs. There's now chatter
Jimmy Butler could be going somewhere. You got the Kevin
Durant stuff starting to rebubble up. And here it is,
(05:52):
you wrote a book on a guy who, what like
maybe seven months ago they were saying could be the
face of the league. It's it's all crazy. Let's start
with how the book came about. Tell us how how
what would you approached Edwards about it?
Speaker 4 (06:05):
Yeah? I think it was it was about that seven
month ago period in the playoffs when you know they
beat the Phoenix Suns and ant highlights and press conference
clips were just all over your social media feeds, and
and my publisher on the book. Harper Collins was interested
in doing the book, and I give a lot of
credit to my friend Joe Perry. He and I grew up,
(06:26):
grew up in the same small town in Pennsylvania. Oh
what down in Pennsylvania, West Pittston, Pennsylvania. It's called We
played a little league. We Hadds, very small, five thousand
people or so, two hours north of Philly. Okay. So
we grew up playing little league together. And he entered
the literary world and became an agent, and he and
I connected with each other. He heard that Harper Collins
(06:48):
wanted a book on Anthony Edwards, and here we are
all these these months later. That's how it all kind
of came about, very very quickly.
Speaker 2 (06:55):
Actually, So Edwards had to talk trash to Kevin Durant
and I think they swept this up ones and then
they took down the Nuggets, and I'm sure that's when
things really ramped up. Huh.
Speaker 4 (07:05):
Yeah, it was before Game seven. I was actually getting
ready to fly to Denver for Game seven, and so
it was that day, really like the day before Game seven,
that I had the first conversation about it. And then
soon after that it became a reality and then I
just basically spent the entire summer trying to report it.
I went down to Atlanta for a month where he's from,
(07:27):
tried to get to know as many people as I
could from his youth. Obviously around the team, I've had
relationships and connections with people over the seven years i've
covered the Timberwolves. So that's the book is kind of
melding his upbringing, his young life with his NBA life
and life story of Anthony Edwards.
Speaker 3 (07:47):
That's wild.
Speaker 2 (07:47):
I remember we had a guy on our podcast before
the draft where it was Aunt and LaMelo, and there
were questions about whether or not Anthony Edwards. You know,
does this guy really love basketball? He's talking about foot
Apparently he was an amazing high school football player or
had the potential as like a youth guy, to be
an awesome football player, and there were questions about it.
And I'm like, listen, guys, have I didn't watch a
(08:09):
billion Georgia games, but I watched enough that holy kn't
how this guy's electric and he's going to be awesome.
Speaker 3 (08:16):
Now I didn't think he would be this good.
Speaker 2 (08:18):
But during your research, did you find that it was
like a football or basketball decision? For him.
Speaker 4 (08:24):
Yeah, that's that's a good question, because people in his
life from a young age were very focused on his
football career, and everybody thought he was going to be
a football star, that that was going to be his route.
He grew up playing for the Atlanta Vikings, like this
renowned youth program in the Atlanta area, and he was
a star player. You go back and watch some of
his YouTube highlights, and I compare him to like Derrick Henry.
(08:46):
He's massive, he towers over people. He'll truck defensive backs
to farm them, you know. And he was He played
primarily running back back then, and that's where everybody thought
his future was going to be. They didn't think he
was going to be a basketball play And then right
around the time he was thirteen fourteen, he kind of
switched gears and he became a basketball player. He started
(09:07):
getting in the gym a lot more. It became addictive
to him to get in the gym. And so I
think one of the things that this book will answer
is why that reputation developed about him not loving the
game of basketball, and how that came about during the
draft process, and why people in his past and people
(09:27):
with the Timberwolves when you ask them about that, they
essentially laughed off. They said that couldn't be farther from
the truth about his desire to work, his competitiveness, and
how often he's in the gym, which is honestly a
very relevant conversation given what just happened with the Luca
Donchich trade and how the Mavericks kind of felt about
his you know, fitness or whatever you want to believe
(09:50):
coming out of the Dallas Mavericks right now, it's a
very relevant conversation to how the Minnesota Timberwolves view Anthony
Edwards and his work ethic and his habits and how
that has developed the time you know, he was a
prospect to his fifth season in the NBA and the
changes that he's undergone since then. The book kind of
delves into all of that.
Speaker 2 (10:09):
So it could have been just some opo research from
like the LaMelo Ball or whoever was like battling him
to be a top five seat.
Speaker 3 (10:16):
Could have been like, hey, this guy Anthony Edwards, you
know you don't like I don't know if.
Speaker 4 (10:19):
It was OPO research from any other camp, but there's
a there was a workout that he had with the
Golden State Warriors that he and has been on the
record about over the years. Even Steve Kerr has gone
on the record about that it was a bad workout
pre draft that he had because the Warriors had the
number two pick that year. That was the year, that
was the year they took Wivesman. Yeah, so the Warriors
had number two, they work out, and he had a
(10:42):
terrible workout, And so I think that's a little bit
of where this reputation came from. But as as you'll
see in the book, this was the COVID draft. Like
the draft had gotten delayed multiple times because of COVID,
which meant workouts got delayed. The whole process just got
you know, thrown into the future, like six months ahead
(11:02):
of when it would normally take place. So that whole process.
One of the chapters in the book just deals primarily
with the draft process. That really took a toll on
ants like physical and mental well being at the time
and that of his camp, and that contributed to that
workout in Golden State, which then led to this reputation
(11:22):
of he doesn't work hard enough. He you know, he
doesn't love the game of basketball. But really it was
a product of COVID essentially is what it boils down
to in the end, and just that having a major
impact on the way he liked to work out and
what he could do during that time.
Speaker 2 (11:38):
It's interesting because the NFL Draft, I'm pretty sure the
COVID Draft was the one where every quarterback was it
was like Trey Lance, Justin Field, Zach Wilson. It also
was just a total bot even Trevor Lawrence has kind
of struggled so that that year kind of I guess
you could give teams a pass for not.
Speaker 3 (11:54):
Believing in him.
Speaker 2 (11:54):
But I am curious when you approached Edwards about the book,
like how did he take young guy? I'm sure you
know wants to craft his own narrative, but like, did
he instantly try to shut it down or tell people
not to talk to you?
Speaker 4 (12:07):
No, he didn't do that. I approached him, I talked
to some people close to him first before I actually
mentioned it to him. I got to first mention it
to him during Team USA workouts in Las Vegas. I
had a very very fat conversation with him about it
this summer in Las Vegas, and he basically said, essentially
go get it was his word. Now. He didn't sit
(12:30):
down for me with me separately for this. I've interviewed
him many times over the years in the course of
doing my job, and so I've used all those interviews,
you know, in the book obviously to represent his voice.
But he didn't shut it down.
Speaker 2 (12:44):
You know.
Speaker 4 (12:44):
He all the people that are kind of close to him,
you know, friends, associates, his business manager, Justin hallme, people
from back in Atlanta that he's close with, people from Georgia,
you know, people that are still very close to him.
I didn't get a no from anybody else, you know,
and so he didn't shut it down. He didn't, like
I said, he didn't sit down with me specifically for
this project. But he also didn't shut it down either.
(13:07):
And I think people around him are also very excited
that this is coming out and they're going to get
to see a lot of facets of his story.
Speaker 2 (13:14):
That's pretty awesome. I think I've told his story on
the pod before. But I was covering high school hoops
back in the day and j R. Smith was blowing
up in New Jersey and I was covering his AAU
team a lot. They had so many Division IE players,
and I thought, like, this guy's worth a book. He
was ticketed to go to North Carolina and his family
was on board everything.
Speaker 3 (13:33):
I would go to his games. It was awesome.
Speaker 2 (13:35):
And then finally, as like the McDonald's All American games
start rolling around, his AA coach comes up to me.
He's like, adjacent, there's no book, it's not happening.
Speaker 3 (13:44):
I'm sorry. I was just like what, like, yeah, he's
going to the NBA watch. I was like, oh, don't
report this.
Speaker 2 (13:50):
And then next thing, you know, like he's on a
private jet and all this time I was like, oh damn,
and I missed out on it.
Speaker 3 (13:54):
But I understand, Hey, these guys, it's Anthony Edwards's story.
Speaker 2 (14:00):
You know, they don't always trust journalists, you know, because,
as you know right now, trust for journalists is kind
of low.
Speaker 3 (14:08):
It's just not great.
Speaker 4 (14:09):
It's really hard in this day and age, especially in
the sports world, and you're dealing with, you know, kind
of millennials and Gen Z athletes who as a news
as a traditional kind of newspaper beat reporter that I
am and have been for fifteen years now, you want
to try to separate yourself from the noise that they
see on their phone of social media, you know, to
(14:32):
to kind of basically say I'm not an Instagram meme
person or somebody who's gonna, you know, just tweet stuff
about you, like I'm here to report stories, get to
know you, get to know your story. And so I
think over the years, Ant has seen that a little bit,
and other players have seen that in my work. I
did a big story on Aunt in twenty twenty two,
(14:54):
which was kind of a precursor to the book, and
I did it for the paper, and I went down
to Atlanta for a weekend and basically wrote essentially a
preview of the book about his youth, and so that
served as kind of the basis. And so from that
I developed like relationships with him and his people that
are close to him and those that knew him growing
(15:15):
up that I was able to go back to when
it was time to do this book and just kind
of expand on everything that I had reported three years ago.
Speaker 1 (15:24):
Fox Sports Radio has the best sports talk lineup in
the nation. Catch all of our shows at Foxsports Radio
dot com and within the iHeartRadio app search FSR to
listen live.
Speaker 3 (15:36):
Edwards has an amazing story to you know.
Speaker 2 (15:38):
He had lost I believe his mom and grandma when
he was a youth and it was just like in
a quick timespan and you know, I guess he was
raised by his sister. You know, how do you think
that experience as a youth kind of shaped him as
a person.
Speaker 4 (15:53):
So, yeah, there's that's definitely covered in the book. Is
about seven months apart. He lost his mom first and
then his grandma, their second, in about a seven month
span when he was thirteen years old. And you know,
that's that's the third chapter of the book is where
we get into that and it shaped him as a
person because that was the moment of his life where
(16:16):
it clicked in for him how much he needed to work.
And that's where this competitive drive, this insatiable appetite to
get in the gym, that it really started to take
off from that point forward. And people around him at
the time will say in the book, like, you know,
for better or for worse, that's how he processed things.
(16:38):
That's how he got over what happened to him. You know,
whether he knew it, whether he was conscious of it
or not, that was how he processed what happened to him.
When he was thirteen years old, he just started getting
in the gym. He was competitive, he would just want
to be in the gym all the time, working out
with his trainer and coach, Justin Holland, who's still close
with today, you know, working out with his best friend
(17:00):
and Nick Maddox in high school, who he's still close
with today. And he still keeps that same circle of
people who helped him get through that time close to
him today. It's a very tight knit circle of people
that he trusts. Not a lot of people have entered
his life since he entered the NBA. It's a lot
of people that knew him from back then in Georgia,
(17:21):
and the book will also kind of highlight some of
them as well in the role that they played and
helping him get through his adolescence and teenage years.
Speaker 3 (17:30):
I've got to ask about this whole face of the
league thing.
Speaker 2 (17:33):
It the NBA fans and media, they're desperate for an
American star. John moranc kind of went sideways. Zion Williamson's
eating his way out of the league. Europeans are dominating.
We need like an American star to be the face
of the sport. After they took down Denver, everybody started
pushing Anthony Edwards kind of struggled there against Dallas in
(17:53):
the series, and now he's followed it up with You know,
he's been good, but not like other worldly this season.
Do you think it was too much too soon? I mean,
he's what twenty two, twenty three years three?
Speaker 3 (18:03):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (18:04):
One thing I've learned about covering the NBA is twenty three,
even though he's in his fifth season, twenty three is
still very young in NBA years. When it comes to
where we expect athletes and NBA players to be peaking
and hitting the peak of their powers, we tend to
think of it more as like the late twenties, right
like twenty seven, twenty eight to twenty nine years old.
(18:25):
These tend to be the peak years of an NBA
player's performance. So at twenty three, he's still got a
lot of room to grow as a player and you know,
as as a person off the court as well. So
when you make the conference finals at twenty three, it's
not unexpected that you're gonna struggle, especially against Luka Doncic
(18:46):
who was twenty five, And in NBA years, that two
year difference between twenty three and twenty five is a
big difference. Having that extra two seasons under your belt
is actually I've learned a huge thing. You go back
through recent NBA history and there's not a lot of
players who are in their early twenties that are threatening
for titles. It doesn't really happen that much. It's only
(19:08):
when you get to that twenty seven, twenty eight years old.
I think you can go back and look and like
Steph Curry wins his first title at twenty seven, Lebron
was twenty seven when he won his first title. I'm
pretty sure I can correct me if I'm wrong on that,
But that's about the time that even those guys started
winning their first title. So maybe it was a little
too much too soon. But when you think about the
(19:29):
arc of an NBA Superstars career, he's still got plenty
of prime years ahead of him. That got twenty three
you're going to look back on and say, Wow, he
mastered the game in a way that he didn't quite
have it twenty two or twenty three. That's how That's
how it goes on the NBA sometimes.
Speaker 2 (19:45):
Now I'm going to wrap up with calling for a
conclusion here. This is tough, but like Luca got traded
to the Lakers and I'm my thing is okay? Over
under one and a half titles for Luca Donches with
the Lakers and a lot most people have taken the under,
but I'm not going to be down in Luca when
it comes to Anthony Edwards. Listen, man, this it's going
(20:05):
to be a tall order to build a championship team
in Minnesota. We could argue they step back trading towns,
but that's a short term view. If I had to
say over under half a title for Anthony Edwards in Minnesota,
in Minnesota being the key, where would you lean on that?
Speaker 4 (20:23):
Oh? Man, that's a tough one. Normally as a beat reporter,
I don't get into the prediction business, but I'll you know,
just given the odds, I would probably still take the under.
But just because it's so uncertain and a lot of
that is out of his hands quite frankly. You know,
(20:43):
you need, you know, a reliable two three whatever, and
that's on the GM, that's on the right, you know,
whatever circumstance it is, right, It's just it's just so
hard to get to that mountaintop. And if there's a
dominant team that becomes dynam as stick in the league
or in the West, you know, butting your head up
(21:04):
against that every year could be tough, and it'd be
no discredit to you as a star or the Timberls
even as an organization. I just think the odds of
getting there are just so long to begin with that
I probably just take the safe play and say, under.
Speaker 2 (21:20):
I just thought of when listening to that, and you know,
like it's out of his hands. You said, do you
think Ant is the kind of guy that would take
it in his hands and ask for a trade?
Speaker 3 (21:29):
I mean, before you answer, we've seen.
Speaker 4 (21:31):
Doubtless crazy things happen in the NBA, right, yeah.
Speaker 2 (21:34):
Yeah, yeah, So this idea that like Ant is happy, sure,
great now, but I don't know. I mean, we just
saw Luka Doncicic get traded. Now, he didn't ask for
a trade that we know of, But like Jimmy Butler,
Kyrie Irving, I mean, you go down the list, anybody
who's anybody is basically asked out. I don't know what's
your sense on Anthony Edwards in Minnesota.
Speaker 4 (21:53):
So this is what I wrote about at the time
of the town's trade and one of the reasons why
I think the wolves made the town's trade in this
era of the second Apron and cap flexibility and punitive
luxury tax measures and all that is I think the
way that the Timberwolves wouldever lose to Anthony Edwards. He
loves it in Minnesota. He doesn't mind being in Minnesota.
(22:16):
He's not going to go chasing the larger market of
New York or LA. That's not who he is as
a person. I firmly believe that. But the way you
lose Anthony Edwards is not having a winner or a
contender around him. So if you're plotting out what your
team looks like four or five years from now, when
Anthony Edwards is kind of in this same twenty six
twenty seven year old window that say deeron Fox was
(22:37):
in in Sacramento and asks out right, that's how you
lose him is if you don't have a serious contender
four or five years from now when it's time to
make these decisions. So taking us maybe a slight step
back organizationally with the towns trade, but being able to
have flexibility three in that three to five year window
(22:58):
that I think is what they're looking at, and being
able to retool a team around Anthony Edwards as he
enters that prime of his career is really what the
organization was looking at.
Speaker 2 (23:09):
That's good, so I would totally agree with that. But
that's how Lebron left Cleveland. He didn't want to leave.
They just couldn't build a contender around him the first time.
Remember it was like, hey, here's Antoine Jamison and thirty
five year old check go.
Speaker 3 (23:20):
Go go kick down the Super Celtics. Like okay, that's
not happening.
Speaker 4 (23:23):
So sign yeah, yep, I was going to say, what
these second apron roster building measures that take place, That's
very much reality for teams that enter that second apron,
So it was definitely on their minds for sure.
Speaker 2 (23:35):
Great stuff, Chris, and looking forward to the When does
the book come out?
Speaker 4 (23:38):
June third is our release date. Pre Orders are available
on Amazon anywhere that you can buy books, no matter
what your preferred seller is. It should be up there.
And appreciate the support and I think people will enjoy
it on a basketball level and a non basketball level
as well.
Speaker 3 (23:53):
Did they kind of time it thinking, oh, NBA Finals,
We were.
Speaker 4 (23:57):
Trying to get it out, you know, kind of in
time for the postseason, not necessarily the finals, but at
least for this postseason run. That was the thinking.
Speaker 3 (24:04):
Yeah, I like it. There's always a chance, you know.
I think they got a shot. Very fun. Congrats on
the book Man and thanks for dropping by.
Speaker 4 (24:11):
Thank you for having me Jas, I really appreciate it.
Host
Jason McIntyre
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.