Anthony Edwards has been lauded as the next great American NBA star following his rapid ascension over the past year. The 2024 Playoffs were key in establishing himself as a primary offensive hub for any title contending team. So much so that comparisons to Michael Jordan ran rampant over the past year.
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Former Boston Celtic, Brian Scalabrine, on the other hand, wants to pump the brakes on all of this talk. As Ant and the Minnesota Timberwolves continue to struggle this season, he has refused to bring these comparisons to the forefront.
“Anthony Edwards is our next Michael Jordan? Maybe we should slow our roll on that. I never heard Jordan talk about double teams and stuff like that. We live in the NBA where there’s more space like Jordan used to go to the basket when there’s 8 guys in the paint and score. I love Anthony Edwards but he ain’t Michael Jordan.”
“Maybe we should slow our roll about that.”@Scalabrine on comparing Anthony Edwards to Michael Jordan pic.twitter.com/4qGBHNLpsd
— SiriusXM NBA Radio (@SiriusXMNBA) January 3, 2025
This conversation spawned from Ant’s earlier comments about constantly being double-teamed. He expressed a level of disdain for consistently having to make the pass out the double-team when he really just wants to score the ball.
Scalabrine of course, didn’t find this all too fascinating. His opinion was synonymous with the rest of NBA fans. Players as great and talented as Edwards do not get to choose the way they get defended unfortunately.
Making defenses pay for trapping him with two is the only way for a superstar of his caliber to ascend even further into a higher echelon of play. Dishing it out to an open man may seem dull and monotonous over the course of multiple games but winning titles has always had more glory attached to it than securing scoring titles.
Ant has denied wanting to be compared to Jordan
“I want it to stop,” said Edwards to FOX Sports about the constant comparisons to MJ. The 23 year old fully understands that the Bulls icon is the greatest of all time and is nowhere close to him on any level, in terms of skill or accolades.
These comparisons began when Timberwolves legend, Kevin Garnett, said on his show that Ant reminded him of an ’84 Jordan. This soon caught on with mainstream media and fans could not stop comparing him to MJ, regardless of any version of him. There were even rumors of Edwards being related to him due to their striking similarities in physique and playstyle.
While Ant has rejected the notion that he is the second-coming of Jordan, he has remained confident in himself. When asked by Complex if he MJ could guard him, he let out a vehement ‘Hell nah’. He would go on to say in a different interview that he has a ‘trey ball’ i.e. a better 3-point shot that Jordan.
So, while he does want the comparisons to stop, he’s also not backing down from establishing his own narrative. His narrative of course, being that he could beat the ‘GOAT’ in a 1v1.
