Anthony Edwards is not making many friends in NBA circles.
The 2020 first overall pick threw some shade recently at the previous generations of NBA players, saying he did not think “anybody,” except Michael Jordan, had “skill.”
“They say it was tougher back then than it is now, but I don’t think anybody had skill back then,” Edwards recently told the Wall Street Journal. “So that’s why when they saw Kobe [Bryant], they were like, ‘Oh, my God.’ But now everybody has skill.”
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Anthony Edwards, #5 of the Minnesota Timberwolves, celebrates a three-point basket during the third quarter against the Denver Nuggets in Game Seven of the Western Conference Second Round Playoffs at Ball Arena on May 19, 2024 in Denver. (C. Morgan Engel/Getty Images)
Safe to say, the old heads did not like that.
Hall of Famer Magic Johnson, a five-time NBA champion, was pretty blunt in his response.
“I never respond to guy that’s never won a championship. He didn’t win a college championship, I don’t know if he even won a high school championship,” Johnson recently said during a recent appearance in Los Angeles.
Even Kevin Garnett, a legend of Edwards’ current team in the Minnesota Timberwolves, thought Edwards was a bit out of line.
“If I’m being honest, bro, I don’t think anybody in this generation could’ve played 20 years ago,” he said on the “All The Smoke” podcast.
Minnesota Timberwolves guard Anthony Edwards celebrates a foul against the Phoenix Suns during the first half of Game 4 of an NBA basketball first-round playoff series on Sunday, April 28, 2024, in Phoenix. (AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin)
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“Let me tell y’all something, bro,” Garnett continued. “Twenty years ago you couldn’t get to a triple step-back, and then if you shot that s— it had to go in. You know why? We had efficiency back in the day, my dude. It was so f—ing hard, it was too physical. The league had to come off of it for the flow of movement to be able to have scoring go up, which is why we like to sit here and watch the rat race of the high-paced game.”
However, longtime ESPN host Tony Kornheiser might have been the harshest, saying Edwards “sounds like a fool.”
“He’s got to look at these people because he’s destroying NBA legends,” Kornheiser said on Tuesday’s “Pardon the Interruption.”
“This is a guy, he’s a talented player … he should have stopped with this quote: ‘I didn’t watch it, I can’t speak on it.’ That’s where he should have stopped, because you are putting generations of NBA stars and putting them in a trash heap.”
“This is the lack of interest in looking at history”
Edwards has lived up to his billing from while he was in college, averaging a career-high 25.9 points per game this past season to go along with thunderous, posterizing dunks. He is fresh off an Olympic gold medal win in Paris.
He helped the T-Wolves to the Western Conference finals, and they figure to be in contention to go deep in the playoffs once again.
Anthony Edwards, #5 of the Minnesota Timberwolves, looks on during the game against the Dallas Mavericks during Round 3 Game 5 of the 2024 NBA Playoffs on May 30, 2024 at Target Center in Minneapolis. (Joe Murphy/NBAE via Getty Images)
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Edwards also shot a career-high 46.7% from the floor in the 2023-24 campaign, while his 5.1 assists were the most of his career.
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