Anthony Edwards has shaken up a generation of basketball stars.
The 23-year-old Timberwolves star ruffled feathers when he said Michael Jordan was the only talented player in his prime, from 1984 to 1996. Magic Johnson had previously criticized Edwards for not acknowledging comments from players who didn’t win championships. Now, the greatest player in Timberwolves history, Kevin Garnett, is stepping up, and doing so with respect.
“You have to know what you are talking about in order to be in the argument or in the discussion about what you are talking about,” Garnett said on All the smoke. “I encourage you, young man, but I know what you’re talking about, young man, because [what] you said it made no sense.
That’s how Garnett respectfully ended his speech. He began by stating that most players in the modern game couldn’t have played in the NBA 20 or 25 years ago.
“To be honest, mate, I don’t think anybody from this generation could have played 20 years ago. That’s for Ant, that’s for everybody in our league,” he said. “Let me tell you something, mate. 20 years ago, you couldn’t take a step-back triple, and if you shot that (expletive), it had to go in. You know why? We were efficient back then, mate. It was so (expletive), it was Also “The league had to get rid of it so that the flow of movement could increase the score, which is why we sit here and watch the frantic rush of the high-paced game.”
Garnett said basketball in the ’90s and early 2000s had a “different vibe” and would have been too physical for the modern NBA athlete.
“They’ve never seen a 6’7” [Dennis Rodman] “I’m keeping you,” Garnett said. “You might break your nose trying to dunk. You know? Dwyane Wade broke Kobe’s nose in the All-Star Game.”
“When you hear Michael Jordan and some of the greats talk about the different eras of the game, the ’80s were the ’70s, the ’70s were different than the ’60s, the ’60s were different than the ’50s. But in all of that, there was a spirit of play, there was an aggressiveness,” Garnett continued. “Half of those years [current NBA players] I can’t even be in the locker room.
Boston Celtics Hall of Famer Paul Pierce, who joined Garnett on the show, agreed.
“When I hear [what Edwards said] and when I really think about it, I’m like, ‘No, that’s not true, because you’ve got a bunch of guys that were pretty damn talented,'” Pierce said. He cited a bunch of athletic guards from the 1990s like Baron Davis, Steve Francis, Kevin Johnson, Jason “White Chocolate” Williams, Jason Kidd and Vince Carter.
“The skill level has improved with this generation, but I don’t think it makes you a better player. I think the imagination and the spirit of the game is not the same,” Pierce continued. “They don’t play as much basketball as we do. They practice individually. We played 5-on-5 and our creativity for the game was much better in our day.”
Pierce cited the absence of the mid-range jumpers that helped define the games of Jordan and Kobe Bryant, as well as the long-lost big-man post skills that helped transform Shaquille O’Neal, Hakeem Olajuwon and Tim Duncan into three of the best to ever put their shoes on the hardwood.
“You all dribble the air out of the ball. You dribble the ball 100 times more than the [other guys]. Catch it off the bounce, one dribble, two dribbles to go up. Let me see you do that off the bounce. Let me see your skill set work on that,” Garnett added. “You can’t come in and [our era] and don’t expect a rebuttal. Real (insult), it was totally different.”
