Anthony Edwards is a fantastic basketball player … and a horrible role model for young men.
The 22-year-old has had multiple jaw-dropping highlights this year and Monday night he reacted to his posterizing dunk in a wildly inappropriate way, yelling “lil ass n***a!” into the Bally Sports North broadcaster’s microphone during a postgame interview.
Anthony Edwards reacting to a replay of the dunk pic.twitter.com/yEfQYXVfy0
— Chris Hine (@ChristopherHine) March 19, 2024
Bally’s reporter was showing Edwards a replay of his, admittedly impressive, highlight dunk over the Utah Jazz’s Kris Dunn.
ANTHONY EDWARDS OMG 😱🤯 pic.twitter.com/AJP27GCkxG
— Bleacher Report (@BleacherReport) March 19, 2024
I like watching Edwards play. He’s a walking highlight reel. At just 22 years old he’s already established himself as one of the most exciting players to watch and one of the best scorers in the NBA. He’s got his Timberwolves within half a game of first place in the Western Conference. But this is incredibly disrespectful in multiple regards.
First of all, it’s disrespectful to Kris Dunn, who’s no superstar, but is an established NBA veteran and deserves some basic decency.
Then there’s the fans, who are the second-youngest cohort of sporting fans in North America, trailing only the MLS, according to Sports Business Journal. There are thousands of young fans, many of them young black fans, looking to Edwards to set an example. He just set the example that it’s ok to drop N-bombs on live TV as if there’s no sense of decorum in the sport. (RELATED: NBA Players Just Pulled Off Funniest Jersey Swap Of All Time)
It also shows a blatant disregard for the professionalism of the league, his team and the broadcast team interviewing him. The reporter just breezed right past it, choosing instead to focus on the highlight.
This isn’t the first time Edwards has displayed poor judgment and immature behavior. He went viral in December for callously requesting that an Instagram model he knocked up to “get an abortion lol.”
He’s 22. I want to grant him some grace. I was a moron when I was 22 (even more so than now). But Edwards should really take a step back and realize how influential he is to the young men and kids who watch the NBA. His words have an impact. Hopefully, he will learn that soon.