Edwards Is Out Two Months. Minnesota's Guard Depth Was Already the Easy Problem.

Anthony Edwards is having arthroscopic surgery on his right knee and will miss up to two months. That's the headline, and it's bad enough on its own — he's the engine of this offense, the team's top guard by a wide margin. Ayo Dosunmu and LaMelo Ball will absorb the minutes. That's a real drop in production, and everyone in the building knows it.

But the Edwards absence has a way of pulling attention toward the guard position when the roster's more stubborn problem sits at center. Rudy Gobert is 34, which puts him right at the age where teams start quietly asking questions about succession. Behind him is Rocco Zikarsky, who is essentially a placeholder — the gap between those two in production is substantial, and Zikarsky is operating at a fraction of what a starting center should provide. That was a manageable concern when Edwards was healthy and Minnesota could paper over roster gaps with guard-driven offense. It's a less comfortable situation now.

The Edwards injury forces Minnesota to be better everywhere else for two months. My read is that the center position is where that math gets hardest. Gobert will need to carry a heavier load with less offensive support around him, and there's essentially no safety net if he misses time or hits a rough stretch. The backup center situation was a quiet concern entering the season. It's louder now.