We’re 10 days away from officially putting the summer of 2025 in the rearview mirror. The temperature is dropping, football is back, and the white women are posting about the Ber months like autumn is Halley’s comet that only comes around every 76 years. This summer was largely unremarkable for anyone who doesn’t have a mod haircut, an Adidas tracksuit, and a bucket hat. Nobody will be happier that pumpkin spice is back in their local Starbucks than the NBA.
Since the Oklahoma City Thunder raised the Larry O’Brien trophy after beating the Indiana Pacers in a thrilling seven-game NBA Finals, the NBA has found out why sometimes it’s bad to be a year-round league. Free agency was a dud. Charles Barkley can’t stop dissing the NBA’s broadcast partners, both new and old. And Kawhi Leonard and the LA Clippers are under investigation for allegedly skirting the salary cap through a tree planting scheme.
To add fuel to the fire, the NBA Commissioner held a press conference following the board of governors meeting and essentially said what every NBA diehard has been dreading since the rise of social media. Silver, who has been commissioner since taking over for David Stern in 2014, said the NBA is very much a highlight-based sport and told reporters that if fans don’t want to keep up with the rising costs of watching the games, they can supplement watching full games with free online alternatives and get their fill by just watching highlights.
Calling the NBA a highlights-based league used to be reserved for your dad, who has been saying for 20 years that you only need to watch the last two minutes of a basketball game, and youths who can’t name a player other than Kobe Bryant. Now the commissioner of the league is saying you can tune out and just watch House of Highlights every night to get your NBA fix. It will undoubtedly get walked back in his next media availability. Still, Silver’s comments have huge ramifications for the league that is beginning a new $77 billion, 11-year rights deal with ESPN/ABC, NBC, and Amazon.
Silver’s pivot to highlights will have a multilayered effect on the Timberwolves. The Wolves have been one of the most successful teams in the NBA during the Anthony Edwards era. Across the last four seasons, the Timberwolves have the sixth most wins with 193, trailing only the Boston Celtics, Denver Nuggets, Cleveland Cavaliers, Milwaukee Bucks, and Phoenix Suns.
They’ve reached the Western Conference Finals in two consecutive seasons only to lose in five games on both occasions. We’re in the golden age of Timberwolves basketball, and alas, the Wolves are still viewed as a small-market, second-class team in the NBA. The Wolves rank 17th among NBA franchises with just over four million Instagram followers. They rank 28th in Forbes’ rankings of team value. And getting a mention from the national media is harder than getting Glenn Close an Oscar.
The only way most people would know the Wolves are any good is by watching the games and seeing it with their own eyes. With 28 nationally-televised games, it will be easier than ever for fans across the country to catch a Wolves game. But those games are spread across Amazon Prime, ABC, ESPN, NBC, and Peacock, which will cost fans who want to watch every game.
FanDuel Sports Network will be available to Wolves fans who can’t access it through a cable subscription for $190 a year. League Pass premium for out-of-towners is $160 a year. Amazon Prime Standard is $140 a year. Peacock Premium is $110 a year. And you’ll need a cable subscription or $30 a month when ESPN rolls out its own streaming service in the fall. That’s reaching $900 a year if you want to watch every Timberwolves game this season.
Hopefully, your parents still have a cable subscription that they don’t know you are using, because the costs of streaming are getting out of hand and will force many fans to just scroll X during games and watch a YouTube compilation the next morning to keep up.
The Timberwolves are one of the teams that could fall through the cracks if we’re all watching highlights and praying Zach Lowe has the Wolves high up on his League Pass rankings all season. Luckily for Minnesota fans, if the NBA moves towards being a highlights-based league, the Timberwolves have a human highlight reel on their roster. Anthony Edwards is one of the most electrifying players the league has ever seen and is pushing to become the face of the league because he’s a great player who also produces even greater highlights.
Ant’s highlight reel is arguably deeper than any other player since he entered the league in 2020. There was his star-making dunk over Yuta Watanabe during his rookie season. His dunk over John Collins might be the best dunk of this generation, and his game-saving block against the Pacers is the stuff of legends. Not to mention his viral “Bring ya ass” comments during the playoff series win over the Nuggets in 2024 and his general antics, Anthony Edwards is one of the biggest stars the NBA has at its disposal going into the 2025-26 season.
Edwards cracked the top 10 of the NBA’s most viewed players on social media during the 2024-25 season. He’s swimming in the same pool as the globe’s biggest stars, LeBron James, Steph Curry, Luka Doncic, Nikola Jokic, and Giannis Antetokounmpo. Another year of dunks, blocks, playoff success, and being the most relatable star in pro sports should bring more attention to the Timberwolves than ever before. If anyone can keep the Wolves relevant in the social media era of professional sports, it’s Anthony Edwards.
Adam Silver’s comments will only harm the league in the long term and push fans farther away from the full product. Panic about dwindling ratings will hit a fever pitch after Silver just gave us permission to tune out until the playoffs. We’re all trying to find the guy who did this.