Tag: Stephen A. Smith

Charles Barkley made NBA on TNT’s crossover coverage with ESPN as chaotic as you imagined

This was always going to be wild.

ESPN and TNT collaborated on coverage for the inaugural NBA In-Season Tournament, which produced exactly as much chaos as you’d expect.

It was a huge meeting of the minds between ESPN’s NBA team and TNT’s beloved Inside the NBA crew. That is a lot of strong personalities on one screen. But it was Charles Barkley who immediately took over control of the broadcast.

The former NBA big man complimented ESPN’s Malika Andrews and said that Mike Wilbon was his mentor and friend. He also added that he “loved” former Warriors executive Bob Myers. But then it got unhinged.

WARNING: The following clip contains language not safe for work.

But he had some sharp words for ESPN’s Stephen A. Smith.

Barkley warned Smith that if he came over being loud during the broadcast, it wouldn’t be First Take. Instead, he said that it would be the first [expleitive] whooping that he takes.

Shaquille O’Neal then asked the question everyone watching was wondering: Are you not entertained?!

He then came over to torment ESPN’s Smith for a bit as well with a prank of his own.

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Chris ‘Mad Dog’ Russo somehow made up a name when listing players better than anyone on the Knicks

This was an embarrassing mistake by Russo.

After the Knicks were eliminated from the NBA’s In-Season Tournament, TNT’s Kenny Smith diagnosed the main issue with the franchise.

According to Smith, no matter who New York is playing, the Knicks will always have the second-best player on the court. ESPN’s Stephen A. Smith and Chris “Mad Dog” Russo discussed the topic, too, and Russo agreed with the take.

Russo argued that Julius Randle is a “decent” player and that Jalen Brunson is a “very, very good” player. But he feels that neither are “great” players and that there are other great players in the Eastern Conference.

He proceeded to list a few of the players who he considers “great” and that list included Jimmy Butler, Jayson Tatum, Reggie Brown and Joel Embiid.

Three of the players mentioned by Russo are indeed “great” players but it’s unclear who, exactly, he meant when he referenced Reggie Brown. There is no NBA player by that name.

Perhaps he was mixing up Boston’s Jaylen Brown with the former NFL player who was left temporarily paralyzed while making a tackle against the New York Jets in 1997.

Either way, this was an embarrassing mistake by Russo who appeared to read names directly off a paper and still couldn’t get it right.

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‘This is a team that is no joke’: Stephen A. Smith says NBA should take note of OKC Thunder

‘This is a team that is no joke’: Stephen A. Smith says NBA should take note of the Thunder.

The Oklahoma City Thunder have quickly climbed the ranks of the best teams in the league.

After a surprising 40-42 campaign last season that finished a win shy of the playoffs, the Thunder have had a fast start. They are 13-6 and are second in the Western Conference standings.

One of their most impressive wins happened recently when the young Thunder blew out the Los Angeles Lakers who had a healthy LeBron James and Anthony Davis.

That type of statement win against the most marketed team in the league will draw eyes from the national media.

When discussing the game on “First Take,” ESPN’s Stephen A. Smith sang the praise of the Thunder and what they’ve built over time with this young core.

“To me personally, the story here is the Oklahoma City Thunder. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander is a star. Let’s get that out of the way. We’ve been talking about Wembanyama, by the way, Chet Holmgren can ball. The brother can —  I mean, he can ball.

I’m looking at the youth on Oklahoma City, the fresh legs, the athleticism. This is a team that is no joke and we better all take stock, pay attention.

Sam Presti has done an exceptional job in building this team. I think that it would be nice to see them get over the hump and finally win a championship, since with the great players that he’s had in that organization over the years. But the man clearly knows what he’s doing. He’s one of the elite executives in this game and they’ve got it.

I mean, I like Oklahoma City a lot. … These brothers are really, really good. They are on the come up. Keep them together for a while if you can afford to.”


As the Thunder get better, it’s only natural they get more of the national spotlight. Expect that to continue as it appears OKC is in the infancy stages of a title contention window.

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‘The difference is him’: ESPN’s Stephen A. Smith shows love to Ime Udoka, Rockets

“Ime Udoka, excuse my language, can coach his ass off,” ESPN’s Stephen A. Smith says of the Rockets. “It is just that simple.”

At 8-8, the Houston Rockets enter December coming off two consecutive losses. Yet, after three straight seasons in the basement of the Western Conference standings, simply being competitive is a step forward in the rebuild.

One person who has taken notice is veteran ESPN personality Stephen A. Smith, who had followed Ime Udoka closely during his lone season (2021-22) as head coach of the Boston Celtics.

In Thursday’s ESPN appearance, Smith commented on Houston’s new head coach, who replaced Stephen Silas after the 2022-23 season.

Smith’s remarks:

I do want to take a moment to give love to the Houston Rockets.

The Rockets are 8-8. This is a young team, as well. Ime Udoka is reminding everybody of that rookie coach that went to Boston, and did in his first year as a head coach what the great Brad Stevens couldn’t do in seven or eight years … and that’s take them to the NBA Finals.

Ime Udoka, excuse my language, can coach his ass off. It is just that simple. I’m watching Houston, and I’m seeing them on the come up. The difference is him, and his coaching.

The offseason additions of key veterans Fred VanVleet, Dillon Brooks and Jeff Green clearly made a difference, as well. However, reports suggest that Udoka had a role in those acquisitions. Perhaps most notably, under Udoka’s guidance, third-year center Alperen Sengun has taken a major step forward in his development.

The complete video of Smith’s comments is available below. As for Udoka and the Rockets, they return to action Saturday night in Los Angeles with a game against LeBron James, Anthony Davis, and the star-studded Lakers (11-9). Tipoff is at 9:30 p.m. Central.

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Stephen A. Smith had a hysterical fake argument with a caller over Lightning McQueen from Cars

You HAVE to see Stephen A. Smith (fake) arguing with someone over Lightning McQueen.

Longtime sports media personality Stephen A. Smith wasn’t about to let a caller on his self-titled show make a bold claim about the Cars franchise.

Oh yes, the age-old debate on who is the best racer of all time, Lightning McQueen or Strip “The King” Weathers, made its way to Smith’s call-in show, and the host wasn’t about to let the question from “Danny in Wisconsin” about who is the goat in the Cars universe slide without an impassioned response.

While this is clearly all part of a bit for Smith and the caller, it’s still genuinely hysterical to see Smith get faux-bent out of shape over being asked about Lightning McQueen from the Cars movies.

We would genuinely watch 30 minutes of Smith and “Danny in Wisconsin” go back-and-forth about the Cars movies and the Fast and the Furious franchise, which also gets brought up in this segment.

You just cannot script something this wonderful, as Smith’s fake fury merges with a very unorthodox topic to create a delightful moment of live television.

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Former Bucs QB Tom Brady speaks on state of NFL

Brady had a lot to say about “mediocrity” in today’s NFL and how current rule changes are too harsh on defensive players.

Former Tampa Bay Buccaneers quarterback Tom Brady appeared on the Stephen A. Smith show on Monday, and he had a lot to say on the state of the game and the NFL.

The former Bucs quarterback was asked about how he sees the NFL now, and he had a very curt answer about it.

“I think there’s a lot of mediocrity in today’s NFL,” Brady said. “I don’t see the excellence that I saw in the past. I think the coaching isn’t as good as it was, I don’t think the development of young players is as good as it was.”

Brady attributed this mostly to how the rules in the NFL have evolved. He said that rules today are too harsh on defensive players and that offensive players have a responsibility to protect themselves, saying that players like Ray Lewis and Ronnie Lott wouldn’t have been able to play in today’s game.

“The rules have allowed a lot of bad habits to get into the actual performance of the game… you hear coaches complaining about their own player being tackled, and not necessarily, why don’t they talk to their player about how to protect themself? We used to work on the fundamentals of those things all the time.”

Brady himself was recently a part of the modern game, ending his career in Tampa Bay in 2022. In his three seasons with the Bucs, Brady threw for 16,655 yards, 123 touchdowns, 38 interceptions with a 65.8% completion percentage. He won his last Super Bowl with the Bucs in 2020, the second in the team’s franchise history.

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Stephen A. Smith: Brian Daboll could (eventually) come back to the Bills

That’s one idea:

For now, it’s Joe Brady’s world.

The Bills fired Ken Dorsey after a 24-22 loss to the Broncos in Week 10. From there, Joe Brady, previously the team’s quarterbacks coach, was named the interim offensive coordinator.

Perhaps Brady turns things around and keeps the job for the long haul.

If not, ESPN’s Stephen A. Smith has an idea: Go back to the past.

At first, Smith joked about the Bills rehiring Brian Daboll, who left to become the head coach of the Giants in 2022… then… he sounded pretty serious. Smith sounds like he thinks it could be possible to get Daboll to head back to the Bills.

Check out Smith’s idea in the First Take clip below:

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Stephen A. Smith wants to see Deion Sanders take the Texas A&M job

Stephen A. Smith wants to see Deion Sanders take the vacant Texas A&M head coaching job

As soon as Texas A&M fired head football coach Jimbo Fisher on Sunday, a flurry of names popped up as potential candidates. Some of them include Kliff Kingsbury, Mike Elko, Dan Lanning and plenty of others.

During Monday’s edition of “Get Up,” ESPN analyst Stephen A. Smith advocated for Colorado head coach Deion Sanders to take the vacant Texas A&M job:

“Deion Sanders in the SEC with that vault that they have available to them, with them hogs that he could recruit? Because he doesn’t have them at Colorado, and he ain’t going to get them. I don’t think they’ll do it. Texas A&M, Prime Time Deion Sanders in the SEC? That needs to happen.”

It would be a shocking turn of events as Coach Prime has been in Boulder for less than one year, but nobody really thought much of Smith’s comments on social media. With Shedeur Sanders, Shilo Sanders and Travis Hunter all likely staying in Boulder for another season, it wouldn’t make much sense for Coach Prime to leave now.

Coach Prime has stated time and time again that he is happy at Colorado, although the recent losing skid has certainly been difficult.

Contact/Follow us @BuffaloesWire on X (Twitter), and like our page on Facebook to follow ongoing coverage of Colorado news, notes and opinions.

Fans were confused when Stephen A. Smith called for Deion Sanders to be Texas A&M’s new coach

Sanders is 4-6 in his first season at Colorado.

There are always plenty of surprises in the college football coaching carousel, but Stephen A. Smith lobbied for the biggest of them all on Monday.

Texas A&M made the expensive decision to fire head coach Jimbo Fisher over the weekend, and names are already floating around for a potential replacement in College Station.

If Smith had his way, though, the choice would be easy: Deion Sanders.

Smith said on Monday’s edition of Get Up that Deion to the SEC “needs” to happen and that he wanted Texas A&M to hire Sanders.

Now, Sanders and the Colorado Buffaloes were *the* story of the season’s first few weeks. Coach Prime won the first three games after completely overhauling a 1-11 team’s roster. But Colorado has fallen back down to Earth a bit with a 1-6 record since that start (and losers of its past four games). While Sanders considerably improved Colorado compared to last season, the team would need to upset Washington State and Utah on the road to make a bowl game.

Sanders could be well on his way to a bigger job in college football, but the timing right now just doesn’t seem ideal. After all, if Sanders were to hypothetically take the Texas A&M job (or any other job), it would be difficult for Shedeur Sanders and Travis Hunter to come along after already using a transfer.

Still, Smith’s suggestion certainly caught the attention of college football fans.

Stephen A. Smith disses Lakers over Anthony Davis’ poor game vs. Nuggets

After Anthony Davis had a poor second half on Tuesday, Stephen A. Smith is convinced it’s a sign of impending doom for the Lakers.

The Los Angeles Lakers lost their opening night matchup versus the Denver Nuggets on Tuesday, 119-107, and a natural knee-jerk reaction would be to say they have the same deficiencies they had last spring.

After multiple midseason trades, they became a very good team, but the Nuggets beat them on the boards and in transition when they swept L.A. in the Western Conference finals.

As far as Tuesday’s game, many are pointing the finger once again at Anthony Davis. After a strong first half, he missed all six of his shots in the second half and didn’t score after halftime. He certainly deserves some of the blame.

But ESPN’s Stephen A. Smith took things one step further and said Davis’ poor close to the game is why he believes the Lakers will not win the NBA championship this season (h/t Lakers Daily).

“Atrocious, very concerning,” he said of Davis’ scoreless second half. “Ladies and gentlemen, you just saw the reason why the Los Angeles Lakers ain’t gon’ win no championship this year. … I’m so ticked off at Anthony Davis right now. It’s an embarrassment what happened with him yesterday. We gotta call it like we see it, OK? When this brother brings his A game, he’s one of the top seven players on the planet Earth. Charles Barkley calls him Street Clothes. I said, ‘No, I call him Six Flags.’ He’s a roller coaster. He’s up and down. You never know what you gon’ get. He’ll drop 40 one game. He’ll drop 11 the next like he did between Games 1 and 2 of the postseason last year. I believe it was against Denver. You turn around, you got 17 points in the first half, OK? In the second half, let’s look at the numbers. Second half, 18 minutes, zero points.”

Davis looked very good during preseason play, and there was hype and even excitement that he had apparently improved his outside shooting. He hit 1-of-2 from 3-point range on Tuesday, but his overall aggressiveness evaporated after halftime.

It is hyperbole to say Davis is wildly inconsistent, as Smith suggested when he called him “Six Flags.” But Davis does need to be more consistent, especially in big games. Some of that falls on his teammates and coaching staff to run the offense through him more often, especially when his aggressiveness is waning.