It does not matter whether Steve Kerr’s starting combos on the roster work or not. Whenever Anthony Edwards gets in on the floor, it’s all just a matter of time until his charging for his bucket induces new energy on the whole roster. Well, it can be well considered that Team USA athletes are paving the way for the 22-year-old to let him do what he does best. His flashy shots, dunks, and penetration are what set the opponent back on the mental end. Moving forward, the set wheels like LeBron James and Stephen Curry set up the pace. That’s what ex-NBA star and Wolves player Austin Rivers noticed recently.

While appearing on the ‘Ringer NBA’ podcast, Rivers highlighted how experienced and elite players like Suns‘ Devin Booker, who has a 5.8 3-point ppg career average, much more than Edwards’ two 3-point ppg career average, are letting the Wolves star do what he does best. “There’s no such thing as translation with him; you just put him in a basketball game, and he’s going to put the ball in the circle. His talent is so supreme, it doesn’t matter where he plays.” So, Team USA is utilizing Edwards’ explosiveness as a means to let themselves think on the technical end, as per Rivers.

“I think they realize that so that I think when people see all these Booker and all these other guys are moving out and letting him have the show, it’s not because they are scared or being passive, I think these guys are strategically being smart. you can’t all be in there like they gonna have to play around me otherwise it’d be a catastrophe. you let ant do that, everybody else finds other ways like Devin’s so tactical, he’d be a spot shooter, “ Rivers further expanded his analysis of Anthony Edwards‘ role in the Dream Team.

Anthony Edwards is the leading scorer of the Dream Team in previous exhibition games!

The reason why Austin Rivers addressed that the NBA community might feel that other elite players are getting ignored is due to the team’s dependency on Edwards in terms of scoring. He has been the most consistent with his performance, collecting 13, 14, and 16 points from hoops in the last three exhibition games. While the other players are dominating the single game charts, Edwards is leading the score chart overall with 43 basket points.

In the second place, there is the Golden Boy Stephen Curry, scoring 39 points, whose major chunk belongs to his 24-point shooting chaos in the last game against Serbia. At last, Anthony Davis has been leading the charts in third place with his 34-point performance. Although his previous game did not go that well, with only 7 points from scoring, he’s been the second most impact player on Team USA after Anthony Edwards.

So far Edwards has lived to his claim of being the “no. 1 option” for scoring. Team USA is giving Ant-Man what he needs and getting the explosiveness necessary to bring out the level of the game and playing to one’s abilities. What do you all think of this tactic? Can Anthony Edwards maintain his scoring so far in the gold medal game, delivering in clutch moments? Let us know in the comments.