98.5 The Sports Hub radio hosts Jim Murray and Mike Felger both took shots at Jayson Tatum while propping up Anthony Edwards following the Minnesota Timberwolves taking a 2-0 series lead on the Denver Nuggets in their Western Conference Semifinals series and ahead of the Boston Celtics' 120-95 demolition of the Cleveland Cavaliers on May 7.
The hosts were comparing the two, for some reason, despite playing different positions.
"...look, and I get the argument, “well, Tatum’s already been to a finals. How many Eastern Conference finals has he gone to?” There’s a softness I see with him," Murray prefaced before saying, "He’s not my favorite player on the team. There’s something missing with him. Edwards is a badass. I want I would take Anthony Edwards."
"Tatum is with 6’9″ and plays like 6’11”," Felger prefaced before saying, "Or he’s 6’8″, but I feel like he plays like Durant. Like I think he’s got that length. So I would much rather have Tatum’s size and length. Tatum’s also a little bit better of a shooter, don’t you think?
"So I think Tatum, and again just eyeballing it and just seeing it, I think Tatum is a more fluid athlete. He’s a more coordinated athlete. I think Anthony Edwards is more raw power. More aggressive, certainly, but he’s smaller. Tatum is bigger and shoots a little better."
Anthony Edwards hype and Jayson Tatum slander at an all-time high
The Timberwolves are 6-0 through their first six games of the postseason while the Celtics are 5-1 through theirs. Both teams' stars should be celebrated, even if Tatum has taken a backseat to Jaylen Brown at times.
But Edwards is being portrayed as a top-five player in an almost artificial algorithmic way -- giving "industry plant" vibes even though Edwards is deserving of a serious amount of hype in his own right -- while Tatum is being bashed every time some other team's star player goes off.
Tatum is a victim of his own expectations, having come within a quarter of a Finals appearance and dunking on LeBron James in his first Finals appearance. Edwards, on the other hand, has had a slower build to stardom that started off with a 23-49 record his rookie year and two first-round eliminations in years two and three. Tatum, for the record, has never missed the postseason and has been bounced in the first round twice.
One can point to the supporting casts for why Tatum has gone further in his career, and to that, the Houdini asks: are we really punishing Tatum for being on a well-run franchise?
The answer is yes. Why that energy is coming from the Boston media is another question entirely.