Kenny Smith said he called Stephen A. Smith about his criticism of Kyrie Irving during the 2022 season when the “First Take” host got into an altercation with the Mavericks star.
During TNT’s pregame show on Tuesday ahead of Game 4 of the Western Conference Finals between the Mavericks and Timberwolves, Kenny explained how he “set back” Stephen A. Irving the last time they faced each other.
“The thought process has always changed. [Irving] “The press has criticized him. As basketball players, we don’t talk about his political or social stances or look at him negatively,” Kenny said while discussing Irving’s development.
“I’ll say it. I wasn’t going to say it. I never said it to Kylie, but I did say it to Steven A., because Steven A. had previously advocated for me fighting this guy. So I had to call Steven, and I was like, ‘This guy’s from my neighborhood.'”
“I named about six people and said, ‘Stephen, these people were your mentors too, so anything you say about him, you’re actually saying something about us.’ So he got it, and they backed off a little bit.
“As media professionals, we have to understand that young people have experiences that are unique to them. They grow up, they appreciate things, they have a different perspective than we had.”
On “First Take” Wednesday morning, Stephen A. acknowledged the conversation and admitted he was wrong.
“He was 1,000 percent right… Kenny Smith and I have known each other for decades,” Stephen A. said, noting that his brother, Vincent, coached Kenny when he was in middle school at Lost Battalion Hall in Queens.
Charles Barkley agreed that Irving has shown significant improvement, but explained that the NBA champion deserved the eight-game suspension he received from his former team, the Nets, for sitting out games without pay after sharing social media posts in November 2022 about a book and movie that featured anti-Semitic tropes.
Irving apologized at the time, but Netz said He was deemed “unfit to be” on the team because he did not have a chance to explain or deny his anti-Semitism in his post-game press conference.
“Yeah, that’s a good thing. He brought it on himself and he has to take responsibility,” Barkley said Tuesday. “I think he’s grown up. I think he’s matured. Stephen A. and others have criticized him and rightly so. You can’t go out and yell anti-Semitism. Getting vaccinated is your own doing. But he deserves the criticism he’s received. He deserves the suspension.”
“But as a basketball player, I think he’s really grown. We’ve all made mistakes. I’ve done a lot of stupid things, but at some point you have to grow up. And I think he’s grown.”
Irving apologized again upon returning to the Nets from an eight-game suspension.
“I do not stand for hate speech or anti-Semitism or any act that is anti-human,” Irving said at the time. “I believe we should all have the opportunity to speak for ourselves when assumptions are made about us, and I feel I needed to stand up and take responsibility for my actions, because there is a way that this whole thing should have been handled.”
Speaking on “First Take,” Stephen A. harshly criticized Irving for a variety of reasons, including his vaccination status, throughout the All-Star’s dramatic tenure with the Nets.
Prior to that, Stephen A. accused Irving, who played just 29 games in the 2021-22 season due to various absences, of “not showing up to work.”
Currently appearing “Mike Missanelli Podcast” Last March, Stephen A. said there were “personal” differences between Irving and his father, Drederick, but cautioned that their issues wouldn’t affect his analysis of the Mavericks guard.
“Kyrie and I have differences on a personal level that are no one’s business and I’m not going to say why,” Smith said at the time. “He knows why, and his father knows why.”
“They know how I feel about how they acted towards me and they know how I feel about them and I know how they feel about me.”
The Western Conference Finals series between the Mavericks and Timberwolves will be played in Dallas on Thursday in Game 5.
