The last time an American-born player walked away with the top honor was James Harden in 2018. The run of international players winning MVP -- Gilgeous-Alexander is from Canada -- speaks to the expanding global reach of the NBA and the increased number of talent outside of the United States.

Two years ago, as Jalen Brunson emerged as an All-Star point guard for the NBA's New York Knicks, the head coach of the WNBA's Las Vegas Aces, Becky Hammon, declared on an ESPN panel, "If your best player is small,

Minnesota has plenty of room for improvement heading into Game 2, starting with the play of Anthony Edwards. The star guard went just 5-of-13 from the field and scored only 18 points in Game 1, and he is expected to play much better moving forward. On TNT's "Inside the NBA," Shaquille O'Neal said that Edwards needs to assert himself.

Kendrick Perkins believes Anthony Edwards would leap past Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Jalen Brunson and Tyrese Haliburton with a 2025 NBA title.

As opposed to his rookie teammate Jaylen Clark, who played six minutes in Minnesota's blowout loss to Oklahoma City. Clark's rookie contract this season is valued at $492,323. That's before taxes. At Edwards' fine rate, he'd be broke.

Edwards hit only five of those shot attempts and scored an anemic 18 points. As a team, Minnesota shot a frigid 34.9% from the field and committed 19 turnovers, and it didn't score a single fast-break point in all of Game 1.

Michael Malone tells Pat McAfee that the Timberwolves need Anthony Edwards to adopt an aggressive mindset in Game 2 of the Western Conference finals.