Well, there’s nothing like a vote of confidence from George Lucas himself to give the blessing for some twists in Star Wars canon, and Dave Filoni has contributed to and created two series that brought Star Wars to TV in a wonderful way.
Prior to the reset of Star Wars canon following the Lucasfilm sale to Disney that wiped out the Expanded Universe, there were already a lot of stories about characters like Anakin and Obi-Wan, and writing for such iconic characters for an animated TV show must have felt inconceivable.
Dave Filoni never imagined that he and his co-producer would be able to tell original stories for characters like Anakin and Obi-Wan, which is definitely understandable.