{"id":209289,"date":"2025-08-02T17:29:10","date_gmt":"2025-08-02T17:29:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/209289\/"},"modified":"2025-08-02T17:29:10","modified_gmt":"2025-08-02T17:29:10","slug":"thats-a-bad-boy-cousins-thinks-ant-will-be-the-next-american-player-to-win-the-nba-mvp-award","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/209289\/","title":{"rendered":"“That’s a bad boy”- Cousins thinks Ant will be the next American player to win the NBA MVP award"},"content":{"rendered":"

“That’s a bad boy”- Cousins thinks Ant will be the next American player to win the NBA MVP award<\/a> originally appeared on Basketball Network<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The last seven NBA MVP awards were won by players not born in the United States. Of the seven, only Joel Embiid has played for Team USA. However, he is a dual citizen, holding both American and Cameroonian passports.<\/p>\n

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When it comes to an American-born MVP winner, the last such player to win the league’s top individual honor was James Harden in 2018. Given the current dominance of European players in the league, many wonder when an American will win the award again, and if so, then who?<\/p>\n

Former All-Star center DeMarcus Cousins<\/a> says the answer is easy. It’s Minnesota Timberwolves’ guard Anthony Edwards<\/a>.<\/p>\n

“That’s a bad boy. We can talk all we want about the Euro thing, but whenever he steps on the floor, you know he’s on the floor. It don’t matter who’s out there,” said<\/a> Cousins.<\/p>\n

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Ant-Man is one of the NBA’s biggest stars<\/p>\n

Edwards is one of the best young players in the league today. The 23-year-old from Atlanta, Georgia, was the No.1 overall pick of the 2020 NBA Draft. After he was snubbed for Rookie of the Year honors, Ant took his game to the next level.<\/p>\n

Ant-Man has been named to the All-Star team in each of the last three seasons and to the All-NBA second team in each of the previous two. Edwards finished 7th in the MVP voting in each of the last two seasons, and his Timberwolves have made the Western Conference Finals during that same span.<\/p>\n

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According to Cousins, all the Wolves need is a really good point guard to help Edwards push them over the hump. They already have Rob Dillingham, but Boogie thinks he isn’t ready yet.<\/p>\n

“I think he’s more so about getting the right talent around him. I think they got some good pieces. They got to find a really good PG put next to him. I’m a big Rob fan, that’s UK bro. When you play with guy like that, you got to put your game in the backseat. And I think young fella is through that stage of figuring out how to feature the star,” he added.<\/p>\n

Related: “I needed something to calm me down” – Richard Dumas admits he used to drink a six pack of beers before every game<\/a><\/p>\n

Dillingham is not yet ready to take the center stage<\/p>\n

Last year, the Timberwolves traded for Cousins’ fellow Kentucky Wildcat Dillingham on draft night to bolster their point guard rotation. However, the 8th pick of the 2024 NBA Draft saw action in only 49 games and played just 10.1 minutes per game while averaging 4.5 points and 2.0 assists per game. DMC says Rob still needs some time to develop.<\/p>\n

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“I think Rob has a lot of talent, a lot of potential, but he’s still figuring it out. It’s gonna be a progress. It’s going to be something he has to continue to work on. But as far as him getting the results right now, they got to get a veteran guard that understands the game now, and I think he’ll be a guy in the MVP conversation,” DeMarcus explained.<\/p>\n

Currently, veteran Mike Conley is the starting point guard for the T-Wolves, with Dillingham as backup. On the free agent market, Russell Westbrook and Malcolm Brogdon are still available, but it’s unclear if either veteran is what Boogie thinks Minnesota needs.<\/p>\n

Related: “Don’t let him get the ball” – Mitch Richmond reveals how he’d try to slow down Anthony Edwards in today’s league<\/a><\/p>\n

This story was originally reported by Basketball Network<\/a> on Aug 2, 2025, where it first appeared.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"“That’s a bad boy”- Cousins thinks Ant will be the next American player to win the NBA MVP…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":209290,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[375,7,805,560,936,2729,371,152,36901,6,12,977,254,3460],"class_list":{"0":"post-209289","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nba","8":"tag-anthony-edwards","9":"tag-basketball","10":"tag-demarcus-cousins","11":"tag-james-harden","12":"tag-joel-embiid","13":"tag-malcolm-brogdon","14":"tag-mike-conley","15":"tag-minnesota-timberwolves","16":"tag-mvp-voting","17":"tag-nba","18":"tag-nba-draft","19":"tag-rob-dillingham","20":"tag-russell-westbrook","21":"tag-western-conference-finals"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/114960358658115454","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/209289","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=209289"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/209289\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/209290"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=209289"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=209289"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=209289"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}