Former Minnesota Timberwolves guard Austin Rivers came under fire this week after his claim that NBA players could succeed in the NFL while also claiming that not one NFL player could jump ship to play in the NBA.
Much of the backlash has come from former players with the harshest coming from former Green Bay Packers wide receiver and current FS1 host James Jones.
“Austin Rivers, if you stepped on the field, homeboy, you wouldn’t make it,” Jones said Thursday on FS1’s Speak. “We know that right now, because you barely made it in the NBA.”
Here’s the clip:
Rivers, who is now an ESPN analyst, responded by saying he had never heard of Jones.
“I was lottery pick who has already played 11 years. You played 8/9 seasons in the NFL,” Rivers wrote on X. “Make it make sense. By your own logic you really barely made it.”
To be fair, Austin Rivers is right — he was a lottery pick and didn’t “barely make it the NBA”, as Jones claims but that doesn’t mean what he said originally was right.
