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Anthony Edwards ruffled plenty of feathers with a Hot Take about the skills of NBA players who were in the league during the Michael Jordan Era, and Magic Johnson wasn’t shy about firing back while addressing his comments during an interview with Stephen A. Smith.
The sport of basketball has obviously come a long way since James Naismith nailed a peach basket above the gym in a YMCA in 1891, and the constant evolution of the game has sparked plenty of debates involving the comparative talents of guys who played at markedly different moments in time.
In 2022, J.J. Redick was treated to a stern rebuke from Bob Cousy (as well as Jerry West) for attempting to minimize the achievements of the Celtics legend by asserting he was playing against “firefighters and plumbers” during the prime of his NBA career in the 1950s, and Anthony Edwards couldn’t stop himself from floating a similarly bold claim last week.
During an interview with The Wall Street Journal, the 23-year-old Timberwolves superstar committed a bit of an unforced error while admitting he wasn’t old enough to remember what the NBA was like in the 1980s and 90s before nonetheless saying Michael Jordan was the only player in that era who “really had skill,” which is simply an absurd statement to make.
Magic Johnson is one of the many players you could point to in order to debunk that claim, and the five-time NBA champion who’s enshrined in the Basketball Hall of Fame got the chance to respond to Edwards while chatting with Stephen A. Smith at a casino in California last week.
Johnson was more than happy to get petty while firing back at Edwards, saying:
“I never respond to a guy who’s never won a championship. There’s nothing to really say.
He didn’t win a college championship. I don’t know if he even won a high school championship.”
It’s worth noting Edwards did, in fact, win a state championship when he was a high schooler in Georgia, and he could also flash the gold medal he won in Paris as a member of Team USA to firm up his side of the argument.
With that said, I can’t knock a man who won the Larry O’Brien Trophy five times for saying someone else who’s failed to secure one isn’t allowed to make any sweeping judgments on an era he wasn’t alive to witness.