STEPHEN A. Smith’s First Take colleagues were surprised when he admitted he NEVER watched Bronny James play.
The co-host was discussing the Los Angeles Lakers’ reaction to selecting Bronny, 19, with the 55th pick in the NBA Draft.
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And he started with a shocking revelation.
“I’m one of the rare people in this country who has never seen Bronny James play. Never,” he said.
“Games on TV?” Jay Williams asked, assuming Smith must have been referring to live.
“Nothing,” Stephen A. continued. “I never wanted to watch it.
“The bottom line is, I always felt, he was put in a really unfair position.
“The scrutiny that would fall on him is incredible.
“And if I saw him, everyone would be like, ‘Hey, what are you going to say.’ And I didn’t want to touch that.”
Smith went on to share his joy with the entire James family and praised LeBron, 39, and his wife Savannah, 37, for the work they did raising their son.
It is the first time that father and son have played on the same NBA team, which has led some to accuse the Lakers of nepotism.
But Smith refuses to defend her and spoke for nearly six minutes to make his case.
“We live in a country where nepotism has occurred religiously with white people forever,” said the ESPN star said.
“We said little or nothing about it.
“Specifically in the NBA, in a league where at least 70% of the players are black, we saw nepotism towards white people everywhere.
“And now this happens to LeBron James, a member of basketball’s Mount Rushmore, and suddenly you have people talking trash.”
Stephen A. Smith’s journey through the media
STEPHEN A. Smith is now the face of ESPN and executive producer of First Take, having initially started working for the company in 2003.
Smith has held numerous roles at the network, including radio show host, contributions to SportsCenter and appearance on NBA Countdown.
He was a columnist for the Philadelphia Inquirer from 1994 to 2010.
He started as an NBA writer before becoming a general sports columnist.
Prior to that, Smith worked as a reporter at the Winston-Salem Journal, the Greensboro News and the New York Daily News.
Williams went even further than Smith.
“I’ve been in a lot of rooms where I’ve seen people who aren’t worthy of the opportunity, and if you’re not worthy of the opportunity, I’m going to be angry at the opportunity you were given — but I understand how the game is played,” he told co-analyst Kendrick Perkins.
“Ninety-nine percent of the time none of these people look like us, Perk.
“And I think when I saw a lot of chatter online from people who look like us, I thought, wait, don’t we need more cases of black nepotism?
“Especially when that person has the disposition and behavior of someone who deserves to be put in that position.
“So when I look at Bronny; I watched games, I saw games where he showed up two and a half hours early, where he stayed after the games working out, where I talked to him and he said the right things.
“Even the way he handled the McDonalds All-American game. Even the way LeBron has conducted his career, why isn’t that worthy of a second-round draft pick?”
This story originally appeared on The-sun.com read the full story
