Despite the fact that we are at the deepest point of the NBA offseason, a month removed from the Olympics and a month still to go before training camp starts, we have had a few bits of controversy still pop up. We’ve seen Shaq continue his beef with Rudy Gobert (and Ben Simmons), while Anthony Edwards reignited the seemingly never ending war of words between NBA generations.
While we typically see older players criticizing the current generation for being soft, Edwards spun it around and said players from the 80s and 90s didn’t have any skill — with the exception of Michael Jordan — in a somewhat bizarre, one-off answer to a question in a wide-ranging Q&A that never followed up or built off that statement. Unsurprisingly, that led to plenty of push back and ruffled feathers, with Magic Johnson offering the most scathing rebuttal, noting he didn’t feel the need to respond to someone that’s never won a championship at any level, from high school to the pros.
On a recent episode of Podcast P, Paul George and DeMar DeRozan discussed Edwards remarks (video above), and, while trying to give Edwards the benefit of the doubt that maybe some context was missing, noted that they didn’t understand why he’d say something like that. DeRozan, in particular, seemed taken aback by the comments, explaining that “I would never undermine anybody that came before me because they built the foundation for us to be where we was at today.” DeRozan also points out that he hopes the game keeps growing to where players in 20 years look more athletic and more skilled than the players now, but that he wouldn’t want those players trashing guys like Ant — who he also said is his favorite player right now.