NBA betting: Why now is the time to bet on Anthony Edwards to lead the league in 3s made per game

Anthony Edwards has been a bomb from downtown this season, and just over a week in, he’s making more 3-pointers than any other player in the league.

Can he maintain that pace and be the league’s 3-point king this season?

According to ESPN BET, Edwards is tied for the second-shortest odds to lead the league in 3-pointers per game. match to +750. He’s still a significant underdog to odds-on favorite Stephen Curry (-120), but his odds are much shorter on Friday than they were on Tuesday (+2000). So if you believe Ant Man can do it, now is the time to get in.

But can he?

I say yes. Because leading the league in 3-point shooting is pretty much a feat of volume, and no one in the NBA has ever shot more 3-pointers per game. game than Edwards has this season.

Edwards makes 13.3 3-pointers per game ahead of Jayson Tatum (12.2 3PA), Tyrese Maxey (12.0) and LaMelo Ball (12.0) for this season. James Harden holds the NBA record with 13.2 3PA in the 2018-19 season. Harden and Curry have led the league in 3PA every season since the 2012-13 campaign.

The question becomes, will Edwards continue to shoot from 3-point range at such an incredibly high rate? Edwards’ career high is 8.4 3PA heading into the 2021-22 season, and last season he set his career low at just 6.7 3PA.

Why Edwards will take more 3s in 2024-25

A funny thing happened last season… The Celtics won the NBA Championship with a team that led the league in 3-point attempts with the second most 3-pointers in NBA history. Edwards’ Timberwolves made the Western Conference Finals despite ranking 23rd in 3-point attempts and 17th in 3-pointers, but their lack of volume from long range was noted as part of the reason their offense couldn’t keep up with the elite .

Edwards seems to have taken that lesson to heart. He began to demonstrate his new 3-point shooting speed in the Olympics, where a full half (25) of Edwards’ field goal attempts (50) came from behind the arc. While the international 3-point line is shorter than the NBA line by nearly two feet, it was still impressive that Edwards knocked down those looks at a 48% clip.

Edwards increased that 3-point pace even more during the NBA preseason, with 37 of his 56 field goal attempts coming from behind the arc. He took 16 3-pointers in a game when he didn’t even hit them well, making just three (18.8%) of his attempts while continuing to shoot away.

Early in the season, the Timberwolves are seventh in the NBA in 3-point attempts per game and fifth in 3-pointers made per game, with the difference from last season almost entirely due to Edwards’ rise. And Edwards is knocking down his looks, shooting what would be a career-best 41.5% from deep.

What to expect from Edwards

While the 3-point percentage could drop a bit over time, perhaps dropping closer to the 36.3% he shot from behind the arc the past two seasons, it also wouldn’t be shocking if his shooting is just better this season. Edwards is known for working on his game and making significant improvements in the offseason, and he’s still only 23 years old.

And regardless of the percentage, it looks like Edwards’ increased shooting volume from downtown is likely to continue. The game has changed and this is a copy-cat league. The Celtics’ success, just after the era in which the Warriors used their long-range dominance to win four titles, has pushed the rest of the league to more and more shots from deep. The NBA as a whole is taking and making more 3-pointers this season than ever before, and it looks like Edwards and the Timberwolves are leaning into the trend.

Edwards currently leads the league with 5.5 3PG. Jordan Poole (5.0 3PG) and Buddy Hield (4.8 3PG) are second and third, but Hield is both shooting unsustainably high percentages at 57.1 3P% and 50.0 3P%, respectively, while averaging fewer than 10 attempts per game. Curry is dealing with an ankle problem that has kept him off the court, but he has only made more than five 3-pointers per game three times in his career and hasn’t done so since the 2020-21 season.

Then Edwards will lead the league in 3-pointers per game. game this season? While we won’t know that answer until April, he certainly seems more likely than 7-to-1 to achieve this. Which makes his +750 odds on ESPN BET strong value.