Earlier this week, Bill Simmons took issue with ESPN’s coverage of Boston Celtics star Jayson Tatum.
As it turns out, Simmons has an ally in Josh Hart.
On Thursday’s episode of Get Up, the ESPN morning show used Hart’s comment on The Pivot Podcast that Derrick White is “more impactful than JT” as a jumping off point for Mike Greenberg to express his belief that there’s a desire to “diminish” Tatum’s standing in the league. That didn’t sit well with the New York Knicks guard, who took to X to implore the show to leave him out of the conversation.
“Yall realize saying something is more impactful isn’t belittling the other guy right?” Hart said, quote-tweeting a clip from Get Up discussing the topic. “Leave me out this ‘desire to belittle JT’ narrative.”
Watching the clip of Hart’s original comments, it seems clear he wasn’t trying to “diminish” Tatum, but was instead offering praise for White. During a conversation regarding the most impactful players in the upcoming NBA Finals, Hart made his case for White, using Tatum as a comparison point to argue that the Celtics guard is just as impactful — if not more — than the perceived top players who will be playing in the series.
Conversely, while Hart was clearly praising White more than he was slighting Tatum, the reality is that — intentionally or not — he did compare the two. Greenberg’s larger point seemed to be that despite being a superstar in his own right, Tatum seemingly doesn’t get treated like one by both the media and his peers.
For what it’s worth, Jay Williams sided with Hart during the segment, insisting that the Knicks guard wasn’t shading Tatum. That ultimately led to a humorous exchange in which Williams stated that Hart wasn’t trying to say that White was more impactful than Tatum, to which Greeny replied, “If he didn’t mean ‘more impactful,’ he probably shouldn’t have said the word ‘more’ and then the word ‘impactful.'”
About Ben Axelrod
Ben Axelrod is a veteran of the sports media landscape, having most recently worked for NBC's Cleveland affiliate, WKYC. Prior to his time in Cleveland, he covered Ohio State football and the Big Ten for outlets including Cox Media Group, Bleacher Report, Scout and Rivals.