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ESPN’s Stephen A. Smith admitted he was “genuinely pissed” at colleague Jay Williams after the two got into a firey on-air debate over Kyrie Irving.
In early February, the controversial basketball star requested a trade from the Brooklyn Nets, which he was granted, but the conversation took a turn after Williams felt Smith was too harsh on Irving’s stance on not receiving the Covid-19 vaccine.
The ESPN analyst then defended Irving from the critics in the media who blasted the star guard after he shared a clip from a documentary that contained many anti-Semitic tropes. Smith interjected while Williams continued to talk, and the fireworks began.
“Are you finished? Are you finished?” Smith said.
“Yes, and thank you for allowing me to talk for a minute and 30 seconds,” Williams said.
The two continued their verbal altercation, and Stephen A. added, “There’s a bunch of BS you talking right now!”
The First Take host was a guest on The Mike Missanelli Podcast on the BetRivers Network, and Stephen A. admitted the squabble angered him.
“In the case of Jay Williams, I was genuinely pissed off,” Smith said. “Jay Williams is a friend and a colleague and somebody that I’m pretty close to.”
“On this particular morning, I didn’t know who the hell he was. I don’t know what the hell happened to him that he would come at me in such a personal manner just because I was giving constructive criticism with Kyrie,” he said.
Smith explained his criticism of Irving’s personal life stems from off the court.
“Now Kyrie and I have our differences on a personal level, which is none of anybody’s business, and I’ll never tell why,” Stephen A. said. “He knows why okay? And his daddy knows why. They know how I feel about how they’ve acted towards me, and they know how I feel about them, and I know how they feel about me.”
“But I can say that to Mike Missanelli and anybody out there because I know that that does not interfere with my reporting on him and my perspective based off of the facts,” he said.
Listen above via the BetRivers Network.
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