‘Steph vs. Sabrina’ deserved better than Kenny Smith

Everything about the 3-point battle between Stephen Curry and Sabrina Ionescu during NBA All-Star Weekend was amazing. All except Kenny Smith.

Ionescu pushed Curry to the final rack. She tied Damian Lillard’s score moments earlier when he won the NBA’s 3-point contest. The two archers put on a match worthy of the hype, an amazing feat considering that “Steph vs. Sabrina” was pushed to the moon. The moment Curry and Ionescu embraced in the middle of the court to thunderous applause became a memorable and iconic moment before Kenny Smith made his decision to put a damper on everything.

“She should have shot from the same three-point line that the girls shoot from,” Smith joked, explaining that Ionescu chose to shoot with a WNBA-sized ball (slightly smaller than the NBA equivalent). But he did mention the fact that he chose to compete from the 3-point line in the NBA. Point line (slightly deeper than WNBA line).

There was immediate opposition to this.

Back to Smith. To tell He meant it when he made the comment, but for a moment it seemed like it reeked of misogyny. A desperate attempt to downplay Ionescu’s accomplishments and instead ostensibly say that she’s not good enough to be in the tournament — when in fact, with the exception of Lillard, 3 Even though Ionescu outperformed everyone in the points contest. In an era where there are more shooters in the league than at any point in NBA history.

Ionescu also handicapped herself by deciding to compete from the 3-point line in the NBA, but it’s not because she can’t shoot from deep, it’s because her range is ridiculous. That’s because shooting from the deep line erased her muscle memory, even though she’s been shown to do it over and over again. . Being a good three-point shooter is both natural talent and tenacity. Shooters spend hundreds of hours practicing until it feels natural to them from the range. Especially in competitions where you grab something from a rack, the simple act of stepping back a little can have a dramatic impact on your accuracy. Shoot as soon as possible.

Reggie Miller also took Smith’s comments as misogynistic. This led to an awkward exchange between the two that lasted until the commercial break.

Smith says he admired Ionescu through all of this. His comments were meant to convey that he feels it’s unfair that Steph took shots from a distance that was in muscle memory, while Ionescu took shots from deeper range. That’s what it means. he tried to make it clear Stephen A. Smith Show Monday.

“Most people who knew basketball knew what I was talking about. In fact, I was defending her more than anything because basketball is muscle memory. So he You practice from one range and she practices from another.”

It doesn’t matter whether this is really what Mr. Smith meant by his comments or whether it was simply an attempt to get out of a predicament. This station failed in the most basic part of its job: educating its viewers. It’s fair to say, “Those who know basketball know what I mean,” but the vast majority of people watching All-Star weekend… especially one-off featured events like Steph vs. Sabrina; please do not Understand shooting mechanics, such as muscle memory, and how it relates to shooting distance.They are please do not Please understand what I mean. And it sounded to them like you were criticizing Ionescu because you’re a woman.

If you were a kid for whom Sabrina was your favorite player, you probably never heard “muscle memory” in these statements. I heard, “She wasn’t good enough.” She watches content from misogynistic creators on YouTube.If you’re a 12-year-old boy, you’ve probably heard that talented women needed handicaps. While it may not have been the intention, the result has solidified some of the worst prejudices that exist in the WNBA and women’s basketball as a whole. And with superstars like Caitlen Clark, Angel Reese, and Paige Backers turning pro in the next year or two, and an unprecedented amount of WNBA talent joining the mix, this could be a golden era for women’s basketball. This could not have come at a better time. women’s basketball.

This meant that for Smith, rather than explaining why she thought this event was unfair to Sabrina or boiling it down to a flippant one-liner about how Sabrina should have approached and shot her, she It was a perfect opportunity to emphasize how much I had handicapped myself. There were literally dozens of ways he could have done this in a way that celebrated the event rather than detracting from it.

Instead, he took the quickest and laziest path possible.

This problem was not limited to shooting contests. The lighthearted, tongue-in-cheek style of broadcasting given to All-Star Weekend conveyed little information over three days.I know that’s part of the appeal of this piece. Inside the NBA, but it didn’t suit an event like this. There’s no reason to make a fuss about Jaylen Brown’s terrifying dunk because there’s nothing groundbreaking about this event, but TNT is giving more weight to this marquee shootout than trusting the scripts of their usual speakers. I should have given it.

It would have been great to have some of the great WNBA shooters of the past on the table, or at least some WNBA announcers to contextualize the event from their perspective. It was a celebration of two of the sport’s biggest stars, regardless of gender, and was given the same weight as a casual weekend entertainment event.

There are two final conclusions to be drawn from all this. First, we need more WNBA vs. NBA shooting showdowns. Perhaps in the future, we could tweak the format to 2 rounds, with one round using the NBA ball and NBA distance, and the other round using the WNBA ball and WNBA distance, with some sort of tiebreaker if needed. It will be possible to introduce it. That would further level the playing field and add even more complexity. Second, we should be better. There’s a growing trend of using former players as announcers because they have media training, they need to know how to get their message across, and they need to be able to stand back after a game and say, “People know what I mean.” This is because the jobs of people without jobs are being sacrificed. fact. While former players certainly bring a layer of understanding that non-players don’t have, they can also severely lack the communication skills needed to do the job.

The worst part of all this is simply not being able to celebrate steph vs sabrina What was that? Instead, we should discuss the comments surrounding it. That only happened in events where men and women competed, showing that there are still challenges in how these events are marketed, presented and educated to the public.

It’s just a shame.