The summer league champions have received their championship rings, marking the official start of the NBA offseason. For the players, it’s a time to get away and post professional behind-the-scenes videos of their lavish tropical vacations. Some players are already back in the lab. And Victor Wembanyama is becoming too powerful, training with Shaolin Monks.
But for the rest of us, the dog days of summer are for getting our sweet, sweet takes off.
For most of us, the takes are something normal like “Terrence Shannon Jr. might be pretty good.” They’re light-hearted, like “Naz Reid staying in Minnesota is pretty cool.” Or something based in reality, like “Rudy Gobert is still good at basketball.” But we live in dark times, and some would rather use their summer take purge for evil.
Last week, the NBA’s preeminent take demon, Kendrick Perkins, did something he never did during his 14-year NBA career. He told Gilbert Arenas, Nick Wright, and the rest of the bad take army to clear out and let him iso, and he let fly one of the worst takes of the year, kicking off bad take summer.
Perkins, an NBA champion with the 2008 Boston Celtics, said that if the Minnesota Timberwolves don’t make the NBA Finals in 2026, Anthony Edwards is going to request a trade. That already had ESPN producers’ mouths watering. Then, Perkins doubled down on his prediction, stating that another reason Ant would demand a trade is that he’s only making $45 million next year, a paltry sum less than Bradley Beal.
The likes of Dane Moore and other ball knowers have thoroughly annihilated Kendrick Perkins’ take. However, the fact that the worldwide leader has pivoted this hard towards this type of unverified pod bro gossip points to a bigger issue at hand, which is infiltrating the NBA discourse from within.
Namely, the culture of rings.
Holding an NBA championship ring was once the only marker of a player’s greatness, reserved for pod bros who also tried to tell you why you’ll never have a girlfriend if you make less than $500,000 a year and Kobe stans who started watching the NBA in 2009. It was once reserved for aging veterans who hadn’t won the Larry O’Brien trophy and were running out of time to win a championship before they retired. Think Chris Paul, Jimmy Butler, Russell Westbrook, or James Harden. Now, we’re holding every non-iced star hostage while holding a championship ring to their head from the moment they’re drafted.
LeBron James was one of the early victims of rings culture. Those who remember his entire career witnessed a near miracle when, in his fourth year, a 22-year-old LeBron dragged Zydrunas Ilgauskas, Larry Hughes, and Drew Gooden to the NBA Finals, only to be swept by Tim Duncan and the San Antonio Spurs.
What we remember as a young superstar who willed a mediocre team to the finals and heralded his arrival as the future king is now used as a black mark against his GOAT case because he dared to lose in the NBA Finals. He finally won four rings, but they all now come with baggage. His first two were watered down because they lost the year before and again in the last year of the Heatles. The Cleveland title is pretty air-tight. However, people deem his Los Angeles Lakers championship in 2020 a “Mickey Mouse ring” because it occurred in the bubble during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Kevin Durant had to sign with the winningest team in NBA history to buy his two rings. Giannis Antetokounmpo won two MVPs and a Defensive Player of the Year award, but couldn’t get the Milwaukee Bucks to the Finals in his first five playoff appearances.
Everyone predicted Giannis would force his way out of Milwaukee to win a championship or lose in a bigger market. He finally put the Bucks on his back and scored 50 points in game six of the 2021 NBA Finals to win that long-sought-after ring at, checks notes, age 26. Four years later, the trade talk is back in full force, with some even calling Giannis an underachiever if he finishes his career with one championship.
Jayson Tatum finally got the rings culture cultists off his back with his first championship in 2024 at age 26. Magically, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander escaped the rings chatter for the first seven seasons of his career before putting it to bed with a title in June.
Now the rings culture bullseye is squarely on Anthony Edwards, a 23-year-old who just finished his fifth season with a second consecutive trip to the conference finals, a feat never before achieved in the Timberwolves franchise history.
In May, we litigated that Anthony Edwards is still ahead of schedule in his NBA takeover, but the enemy is knocking on the gates. The man is about to be 24 years old. He’s already won an Olympic gold medal. He also leads a team that has yet to mortgage its future completely and looks to be in the title mix for the rest of Ant’s contract. Not to mention, he’s in line to make the most money legally allowable under the CBA with the Timberwolves.
Maybe Ant should take it as a compliment that so many people expect to see him in the NBA Finals at such a young age. If anything, the constant speculation that he will inevitably force his way out of Minnesota cements his status as a superstar as much or more than anything he does on the court.
But let’s not forget the history of the NBA. Michael Jordan is the GOAT and won six titles. LeBron is standing pat at four. Magic Johnson led the Showtime Lakers to five titles, and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar won six. Kobe finished with five, and Bill Russell is the greatest winner in NBA history with 11 championships. But never forget the greats like Jerry West, who drove himself mad to finally get his first and only ring in year 12 after losing his first seven appearances in the finals.
Elgin Baylor retired nine games into the 1971-72 season without a ring, only to see his teammates finally win a championship without him in 1972. Charles Barkley lost in his only finals appearance against Michael Jordan. Dirk Nowitzki finally held up the Larry OB in year 13 with the Mavericks.
Championships are not a given in the NBA. They’re won with blood, sweat, and tears from superstar players, role players, the right mix of bench specialists, the coaching staff, ownership, and support staff, all of whom have to come together in the right place at the right time.
Before everyone tunes out of the NBA news cycle for the next two months, remember that Anthony Edwards isn’t going anywhere. He’s under contract for four more seasons and has only ever spoken positively about his time in Minnesota, his teammates, and the Timberwolves. Like it or not, Anthony Edwards is hell bent on bringing the “small market” Timberwolves into the national spotlight.
Rings culture has its next victim, and Anthony Edwards will hear criticism whether it’s deserved or not until he wins a championship. Things move pretty fast in the NBA content universe. Victor Wembanyama would be wise to watch his back. If he doesn’t make a playoff run this season, he will likely become the next target.