The Minnesota Timberwolves are 3-1 after a 127-125 overtime loss to the Cleveland Cavaliers on Monday night. Anthony Edwards went into the game questionable, after favoring his right knee one night earlier, against the Raptors.

As has been the case most of his career, Ant played… and he scored 47 points in 41 minutes. Unfortunately, less than 24 hours later, the Wolves were bracing to play a big chunk of the season without their superstar.

It all came crumbling down Tuesday afternoon when Shams Charania (ESPN) reported that Edwards will undergo an arthroscopic procedure on his right knee which will cause him to miss up to two months.

It is the same knee that wrecked the end of his 2025-26 season, though there are questions surrounding the relevance of this injury and the one that caused him to miss 11 of the Wolves’ final 14 regular-season.

How Timberwolves star Anthony Edwards’ knee got to surgery

That left one big question hanging over Tuesday’s news: What happened between the end of last postseason and now? How did a knee that was rested all summer end up needing surgery four games into the season?

A few hours after the news broke, we got more information via Jon Krawczynski (The Athletic), who tweeted out Tuesday night that Ant “was feeling really good” after getting a bunch of rest this summer, and he made it through camp unscathed.

Unfortunately, he “tweaked” the knee in Miami (Wolves season opener on Oct. 21). The hope, per Jon K., is that Ant will be back by January.

On the night he suffered his injury, Anthony Edwards scored 45 points on 16-of-29 shooting, including 9-of-17 from three, with 10 rebounds in a 131-106 win.

Two nights later in Orlando, he scored 15 points on 5-of-23 shooting, before bouncing back with 26 points in 28 minutes against the Toronto Raptors and the aforementioned 47 point performance in Cleveland.

Through four games, Ant was averaging a career-best 33.3 points per game while shooting 48.1% from the field and 40.0% from three.

The return window has moved a bit throughout the day, though. Shams’ “up to two months” would put Edwards back by late December, but Krawczynski’s latest update says doing the procedure means Ant likely won’t be back until January.

Either way, it will be the longest absence of Edwards’ career. Before this, his longest stretches on the sidelines was six games in December 2021 and again last March with the same right knee.

What a knee clean-up could mean for Anthony Edwards and the Timberwolves

The Wolves haven’t said exactly what is being cleaned up. Dr. Brian Sutterer, a physician who breaks down sports injuries, posted his analysis Tuesday, shortly after the injury was announced.

He believes the most likely target is cartilage, either a degenerative, frayed meniscus or a worn spot in the joint cartilage, rather than an acute tear. That would point to a clean-up scope that aims to trim up tissue.

Unfortunately, Sutterer had more potentially difficult information to relay from there. NBA players have missed about six and a half weeks on average after a knee scope, which lines up with the reported timeline.

“That in and of itself is not like a big major structural injury to the knee. But what often can happen whenever a surgeon has to go in and trim out some of that torn tissue, clean up this little area over here, is you are getting some short-term improvement for potentially more longer-term issues. It’s a trade-off.

And so this is not a like ‘fix it, forget about it, no problems down the road’ sort of a situation.”

Dr. Brian Sutterer, via X

However, he went on to provide statistics that show players who come back after this type of procedure only return to about three-quarters of their usual minutes and production, with a 30% chance of the same knee showing up on the injury report again within six weeks.

Within two years, about half of them have had another issue with that knee, according to Sutterer. For a recent example of a star returning from knee surgery midseason, Joel Embiid had surgery on the lateral meniscus in his left knee on Feb. 6, 2024. He returned eight weeks later on April 2 after missing 29 games.

How the Minnesota Timberwolves replace Anthony Edwards’ minutes

Krawczynski named Jaden McDaniels, Jonathan Kuminga, Ayo Dosunmu, Terrence Shannon Jr, Bones Hyland and Jaylen Clark as the players who will have more put on them, and he thinks the Wolves can weather the storm until their superstar returns.

McDaniels is the second-leading scorer among the regulars at 15.0 points in 31.8 minutes per game. LaMelo Ball is averaging 14.8 points in 24.8 minutes, Shannon is at 13.0 points in 22.3 minutes, and Dosunmu is putting up 12.0 points in 26.3 minutes. Kuminga is averaging 11.5 points in 29.8 minutes.

Hyland and Clark have had the smallest roles of that group so far. Hyland has played just 8.0 minutes per game through four games, and Clark has played 4.0 minutes per game in three appearances.