Anthony Edwards Headed for Knee Surgery, Out Up to Two Months

Anthony Edwards is headed for arthroscopic surgery on his right knee and is expected to miss up to two months, per reporting from ESPN's Shams Charania. The Timberwolves are targeting December for his return, meaning fantasy managers who spent a top-10 pick on Edwards just lost their cornerstone for a huge chunk of the season.

The timing is brutal. Less than 24 hours after dropping 47 points in an overtime loss to Cleveland on Monday, Minnesota decided to fix the knee now rather than let Edwards keep grinding through it. He was putting up 28.7 points, 5 rebounds and 3.3 assists across three games this season (2026-27), worth 43.3 fantasy points per game — good for our #9 overall rank and #3 at guard. He was running +5.7 fantasy points above his average over his last five. All of that is on ice now.

The Knee That Won't Quit

This is the same right knee that plagued Edwards throughout last season's playoff run. He was drained multiple times to stay on the floor, dealt with inflammation, and missed the final game of Minnesota's first-round series against Denver before returning off the bench against San Antonio. He also played through a hyperextended left knee. Edwards said in the preseason that he took most of two months off this summer to let both knees heal — and for a week and change, it looked like it worked.

Before the surgery news, Edwards was playing like an MVP front-runner. He led the league with 18 made threes at a 40% clip and had already posted games of 45 and 47 points. The Wolves started 3-1 and looked like a legit contender behind the Edwards–LaMelo Ball pairing, with Ball arriving from Charlotte in a June blockbuster. That ceiling just dropped a lot.

The Fantasy Fallout

The obvious winner here is LaMelo Ball, who's been quiet to open the year at 16 points and 6.3 assists in three games (2026-27) — 32.7 fantasy points per game, our #31 overall rank, and actually trending down (-4.2 vs his average over five games). With Edwards gone, Ball inherits a massive usage bump and should sit near every ball-dominant guard's ceiling. Buy him now if you can before the market adjusts.

As for Edwards himself: if you're in a redraft league and someone's panic-shopping, there's a case to sell the name while the 47-point line is fresh in everyone's memory — a December return with this knee's history is far from guaranteed to be clean. Dynasty and keeper managers should hold and stash; you don't trade a top-three guard over two months. But in weekly lineups, he's a hard SIT until there's a real update.