Stephen A. Smith's 'Fighting Irish Freestyle' Remix
The "First Take" host's tough-talk response to being confronted by LeBron James takes a page from Drake's thinly-veiled diss towards the Lakers star. But that's not all...
First things first: rest in peace, Stuart Scott.
This will be the first and last time I dedicate any amount of time and energy to sports commentator Stephen A. Smith regarding, well, anything. For years, I avoided acknowledging Smith’s antics and hot takes so that I wouldn’t give him the engagement that he craves. However, just like I felt compelled to air out Rolling Stone for their ongoing nonsense in my article Rolling Stone’s Habitual Disrespect of Michael Jackson & The Bigger Issue It Represents, I think that I need to address my displeasure with Smith after one particular incident compelled me to speak up.
Smith, host of the ESPN sports talk show First Take, was confronted by Los Angeles Lakers forward LeBron James last month, immediately following a March 6 game against the New York Knicks. James took umbrage with Smith’s TV commentary over James’ son, LeBron “Bronny” James Jr., and his struggles during his rookie season. This led to a back-and-forth between James and Smith, causing Smith to throw shots at James reminiscent of last year’s rap battle between Drake and Kendrick Lamar. Smith's self-centered, passive-aggressive postering is the latest example how sports commetatore have diluted and disgraced media. He, and many like him, make me embarrassed to call myself a journalist, not to mention made it nearly impossible to watch sports anymore. Here’s the backstory:
The Lakers drafted Bronny out of USC in the second round in 2024. This marked the first time a father and a son played together on the same team in the same game earlier this season.
Many sports commentators felt that the Lakers only drafted Bronny because James had previously expressed his desire to play in an NBA game with one of his sons. Bronny, James’ oldest son, declared for the draft after his freshman season with USC, where the 6’3’’ guard only averaged 4.8 points per game.
Initially, Smith defended Bronny’s presence on the Lakers as well as any influence James had in his son’s drafting. “He’s earned the right to facilitate his son being a teammate of his,” Smith said of James during an Oct. 8 episode of First Take. But soon after their first game together, Bronny, 20, struggled, averaging only 2.3 points and 5.7 minutes in his 24 games with the Lakers. He has played several games with the Lakers’ G-League team, where he is currently averaging 17.6 points a game.
As Bronny struggled, Smith changed his tune about the scenario. On a January 29 episode of First Take, he pleaded with James to intervene, not as a player, but as a father. James would later disclose that he was offended, feeling that Smith crossed a line, talking about him and his son on a personal level on a platform that’s only supposed to critique their professional performance.
“That’s the only thing I’m tripping,” James said to ESPN commentator and former teammate Richard Jefferson at a Boston Celtics game. “I don’t give a f**k. Once he talks about, ‘I’m pleading to you as a father.’ I can’t.”
Since the confrontation, Smith and James have been taking shots at each other in the media. I’ve taken issue with Smith’s comments because he went from always postering himself as being “respectful” of James’ legacy and stature as “the second best player” in NBA history (under Michael Jordan, as Smith constantly asserts) to him becoming very personal and visceral.
Smith insisted that he would’ve physically attacked James at the March 6 game if provoked, prompting James to taunt Smith by posting a video Smith awkwardly training with boxing gloves on Instagram. But what’s most egregious is Smith threatening to air out James’ secrets and dirty laundry during First Take.
Smith responded to James’ comments about him on an appearance on The Pat McAfee Show. James taunted Smith, saying the host was “smiling from ear to ear,” knowing that James gave him some ammo to respond to it. Well, Smith did take the bait. First, he contradicted himself by criticizing James for “circumventing a meritocracy just to get your wish at the expense of the credibility of the league in a lot of people’s eyes,” months after saying James “earned the right to facilitate his son being a teammate of his.”
Then, Smith insinuated that there may be nefarious reasons that he skipped Kobe Bryant’s 2020 memorial service and former teammate Dwyane Wade’s 2023 Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame induction ceremony. “I suggest that [James] be happy with the things that I haven’t brought up,” Smith said. To be fair, Smith would later correct himself after it was proven that James was, in fact, at Bryant’s memorial service, but he refused to back down from his initial thoughts. What?!?!! He’s making millions of dollars researching and talking about sports figures. How could he be so wrong and strong like that about something so heinous and tactless?
Smith’s thinly-veiled threats toward James remind me of Drake’s “Fighting Irish Freestyle.” Back in January, the multi-platinum rapper leaked a video of himself rapping an unreleased song over a beat produced by Conductor Williams. In the song, Drake fires subliminal shots at James (“Fighting Irish” references James’ high school basketball mascot) after the Laker superstar appeared at Lamar’s June concert, The Pop Out. Drake, who seemed to have a public friendship with James for years (Drake has a tattoo of James on his arm), expressed his anger at James for seeming to choose sides following Drake’s battle (and defeat) with Lamar months before. Drake makes threats to disclose secrets about James that would potentially wreck his reputation: “God forbid we ever got to tarnish your public image.”
Like Drake, Smith attempts to position himself as not only someone who’s been victimized by James but as someone with negative information that could destroy his legacy should James choose to continue his public responses. This is petty and pathetic on so many levels, but that’s not even the big picture. This incident with James is another example of how Smith has disgraced sports journalism, along with several other talking heads, by making himself seem as important as or more important than the athletes he covers.
The dust-up with James, sadly, isn't the first time Smith has brought out his tough talk against another NBA superstar. In 2015, Smith reported that Durant, the then-Oklahoma City Thunder forward, was contemplating signing with the Los Angeles Lakers. Durant vigorously refuted the claims on Twitter, stating that Smith was “lying.” Smith responded on First Take, threatening Durant: "You don't want to make an enemy out of me. And I am looking right at the camera." Once again, this calls to mind a Drake song: “Mobs Ties.”
Believe it or not, I used to be a fan of First Take. But, I lost respect for Smith in 2016 when he condemned Colin Kaepernick on an episode of First Take. Kaepernick disclosed in an interview that he did not vote in the 2016 presidential election between Hilary Clinton and Donald Trump. Smith was offended by this and said on the live show that Kaepernick’s on-field protest “means nothing” since he didn’t vote. He doubled down on the point in a CNN interview, saying the decision not to vote was “egregious” and “compromised everything that he stands for.”
The fact that Smith, a lifelong Black American man who spent the majority of his life as a journalist, couldn’t stop for one second and consider Kaepernick’s perspective is completely, as he would say, asinine, asi-ten, asi-eleven. For centuries, the Black man and woman have suffered at the hands, audacity, and insistence of the United States government. The Black community is victimized by systemic white supremist racism regardless of who’s in the Oval Office and no matter what political party they claim. So, for Smith to be on a moralistic high horse so elevated that he can’t understand why some people believe that things won’t change for Black people despite who occupies the presidency isn’t just ignorant, but willfully so.
Months later, First Take had Charlamagne Tha God, co-host of the 105.1 FM radio show The Breakfast Club, as a guest. There, he called out Smith for his criticism of Kaepernick’s statement. The fact that Charlamagne, who is problematic for numerous reasons, had to be on the moral high ground in the issue shows just how much Smith was in the wrong. I've never watched the show in full again, but clips still wind up on my timeline.
Since then, Smith realized that on-air conflict and bombastic helps raise ratings. Also, he has shown his inability to separate his personal feelings from the subjects he reports on. In fact, it’s become his schtick in some cases. He’s gotten fans to tune in to watch him lament on the misdeeds of New York Knicks and celebrate the losses and misfortunes of his least favorite NFL team, The Dallas Cowboys. But, like with James, it spills into how he covers individuals.
Take Kyrie Irving. Smith has decided months of coverage on First Take and other ESPN shows, calling him out over his decision not to take the COVID-19 vaccine, opting to miss home games. Smith constantly lambasted Irving in a loud, boisterous manner repeatedly. However, when Aaron Rodgers, the then quarterback of the Green Bay Packers, a white quarterback that Smith has lauded on TV, was exposed for lying about taking the vaccine, Smith begrudgingly admitted that Rodgers was a liar. He went so far as to say, “I take no pleasure in this,” never once raising his voice. Meanwhile, he would later admit that the friction between him and Irving was over a personal matter.
Besides reminding me of Drake and his passive aggressiveness, Smith and his conservative-leaning takes both inside and outside of sports. His regrets about voting for Kamala Harris, his statement that he would “divorce” Serena Williams over her cameo during Lamar’s Super Bowl Halftime Show, and other pseudo-right-wing remarks remind me of Fox News talking heads like Bill O’Reilly, Tucker Carlson, and Sean Hannity. This is a comparison that Smith would certainly challenge me on.
Smith took umbrage with NFL Hall of Famer Terrell Owens, who called Smith out on his Blackness during a guest appearance on First Take. After admonishing Smith for different conservative views regarding Kaepernick’s attempt to return to the NFL, Owens quipped that Smith’s white co-host, Max Kellerman, was Blacker than him, causing Smith to defend himself understandably.
Although Smith has asserted to Owens and all other subsequent critics who accused Smith of coming down hard on Black athletes more than white ones, that they are wrong, the tape doesn’t lie. Smith is on record calling Kwame Brown, former first overall pick in the 2000 NBA Draft, a “certified scrub.” Certainly, Brown’s career fell way short of the expectations of a first overall pick, but even the worst NBA players are among the greatest athletes in the world. It’s Smith’s job to critique players, but saying statements like this is a step too far.
Smith isn’t even savvy enough to understand that his wild takes and contradictions can be fact-checked since he is constantly on television.
The bottom line is that people like Smith and his contemporaries like Skip Bayless, Nick Wright, Jason Whitlock, and other so-called sports reporters have all but turned me off to watching sports. Smith and these men have perpetuated the toxic hot-take culture in media coverage; the people who have the biggest, most shocking, contrarian opinions and who can express them in the loudest, harshest, most cynical, willfully ignorant way get the biggest platforms with the largest salaries. Last month, Smith resigned a five year/$100 million salary with ESPN. I rest my case.
I’m currently an unemployed journalist/producer who is struggling to eat and pay rent, but I could never stoop so low as to be a writer, commentator, or critic like Smith. The way that these men talk and the things they say about the athletes makes them believe that they are just as important as, if not more important than, them. To paraphrase content creator Just Wayne, you’re the narrator, not the main character.
I understand that I’m an artist, but there are levels to this. I’m not arrogant enough to think I’m more important than the artists and musicians I write about. But Smith doesn’t possess that type of perspective and humility. And quite frankly, as rich as he is, he has no incentive to, which is fine. But Smith, Bayless, Whitlock are just like DJ Akademics, Joe Budden, Adam-22, and so many other problematic Hip-Hop commentators: they make me ashamed to be in this business.
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