[MUSIC PLAYING]
Nothing but illustrious guests.
Tonight, on our stage, who are we bringing to the floor
right now, Mero?
The inimitable, the incredible,
the egregiously talented, Bronx's own,
Stephen A Smith, ladies and gentlemen.
Make some-- - BX all day.
- Make some noise. - Legendary.
What's going on, fellas?
What's going on, y'all?
The meme god, the legendary voice, the man himself,
Stephen, welcome to our show.
Listen-- - Man, thank you.
- You know, we're big fans. - Thanks for having me.
We're big fans.
Sometimes we roast you on here, but it's nothing but respect.
How you doing, my man?
I'm good, man.
How y'all doing, man?
Congratulations on the success of y'all show
and the whole bit.
I was looking forward to being on here, man.
It's good to see y'all. - Thank you, Stephen.
Appreciate you, brother. Thank you for coming.
That means a lot of, man, because, like, listen,
we're trying to follow your footsteps.
You have blazed trails in broadcasting,
and you've done it your way.
What advice could you give us?
Because you have come in, and you've set a tone that yo,
Stephen A Smith does things Stephen A Smith's way,
and it has paid off for you.
So, like, how have you been able to stay true to who
you are from day one?
Well, you know, the people that you
surround yourself with.
I mean, when you grow up with the kind of cats
that I grew up with, whether it be family members, friends,
loved ones, and things of that nature,
and they know who you are and more importantly, who you're
supposed to be, because you gotta be real, true,
and authentic to yourself.
If you deviate from that, they're gonna
be the first to call you on it.
You know, I'm from Hollis, Queens
so I'm always back in the neighborhood.
You know, my family, my sisters still live in Queens, New York
so I'm always there.
The cats that I grew up with in Hollis,
we still friends to this day.
We Zoom each other, you know, at least once or twice a month
and college buddies that I--
that I have.
You got that kind of balance, and you're surrounded by that,
and plus, you remember how you got
to where you are by being real, true,
and authentic to yourself.
I didn't have any quote, unquote,
"journalism training" per say.
I majored in mass communications from Winston-Salem State
University in North Carolina.
Shot out.
But when you talk about journalism schools
like Missouri, and Columbia, and all of that other stuff,
did I have that kind of background?
No.
So all I knew how to do was write, report,
and then when I had to disseminate that information,
I had to be true to myself.
And it paid off.
I don't know how to hell it did.
But I knew that I was gonna be me come hell or high water.
And it ended up working out for me.
So now, a real big question, because this is--
this is major.
You are a celebrity on both sides,
because you're a celebrity on TV.
You-- people look to you for sports takes.
But then on the internet side, you're the king of memes.
There's, like, a reaction--
there's a Stephen A reaction for everything.
Yes.
Like, I've-- personally, I've used
the let me tell you something.
We don't care.
Many, many times in response to tweets.
You know what I'm saying?
Right.
Listen, man, I gotta tell you--
I gotta tell you.
Shockingly, man, I don't--
I don't see a lot of the memes about myself.
I mean, people are always telling me about it.
Don't get me wrong.
I catch a few.
I ain't trying to front like that.
But what I'm saying is I don't really pay attention to it,
because I think what people don't realize is that when you
do a daily grind, they look at me
and they see "First Take," or they see "SportsCenter,"
or they'll hear me on radio or whatever.
They don't realize I've had to do it all.
So it's rare that I have a day off.
Yeah.
And as a result of that, like, I missed a lot of stuff,
because--
when people are saying, did you see that about you?
I remember when Jay Pharoah impersonated
me on "Saturday Night Live."
I didn't know for, like, three weeks.
Chris Bosh and I are like soul mates.
We have showered together.
We have fed each other seedless fruits for more times
than I can remember.
But in the fourth quarter, Chris Bosh should
be nowhere near a basketball!
You know, I'm, like, really?
He did that?
Let me call Jay and his crazy ass up.
You know, I don't know.
But, you know, cats told me and stuff like that.
So a lot of times I'm late to the party in that
regard where I'm not--
I'm just moving forward.
It's on to the next item, next subject,
next show, stuff like that.
And then somebody will say, yo, man,
I need you to check this out, not
realizing that they didn't believe me when
I said, really, I didn't know.
But I really know care either.
It's all-- it's all a part of it, man.
I'm in the public eye.
I'm on TV spitting my truth every single day.
How the hell am I gonna get on somebody for-- for getting on
me in any way?
I remember I was cool-- you know,
I'm cool with Charlemagne tha God,
and he had me as the Donkey of the Day, I don't know,
about 10, 15 times.
And they actually thought that I hated the guy for it.
I was like, you couldn't be further from the truth.
That's a part of his show.
If he thought I deserved to be the donkey, so be it.
That's life.
It is what it is.
You gotta roll with the punches.
That's right.
But, man, listen, you got every sports fans dream job.
Like, does it still--
does it still excite you to wake up every morning
and be like, yo, I'm gonna go down there,
I'm gonna sit down with my homeboy,
and we're just gonna, like, discuss, you know,
the day in sports and what's going on?
Well, it depends on how you look at it, man.
I mean, obviously I love what I do for my career.
Now, obviously, at times, you get a little bit tired,
because I beat people down.
We-- you know, I mean, you try to go up against me
in a debate, my attitude is--
Yeah.
My attitude is-- my attitude is
I'm gonna roll right over you.
So the victims that lie in my wake, you know what I'm saying?
We've seen the Phil Jackson signing episode-- you know what
I'm saying-- of "First Take."
They don't-- they don't want-- they don't want none of this.
So I have fun with it sometimes.
But for the most part, I absolutely love my career.
But I know where it came from.
I started off at "The New York Daily News."
I wrote for the "Philadelphia Inquirer" for 17 years.
You know, I was an intern living off of tuna fish and Kool-Aid
in Archdale, North Carolina.
I mean, I paid dues to get here, man.
And so as a result, there's a level of appreciation
that I have for being where I'm at.
And it's more so about that.
The grind is the grind.
But the grind has never affected me.
I usually leave it for other people to celebrate.
My attitude is do well.
Show some respect.
Earn respect.
And get paid.
Always, always get paid whenever you can.
I'm about that too.
You know what I'm saying?
And also, stay off the weed!
Yeah.
For cats that-- for cats that are allowing it
to cost them money, hell yeah.
Stay off the weed.
DESUS: Hey.
There you go.
That's a signature line right there.
- Yes. - Stephen--
Yeah.
What are your thoughts on--
you know, the NBA is back.
We saw it last night.
What are your thoughts about W-- about the NBA,
how they've been handling the bubble situation?
Because we're seeing, like, MLB is a mess over right now.
Like--
Well, I think the MLB season is gonna end up getting
canceled, because you've got a couple of cats--
or a few cats over there--
the players being a specific--
that really didn't want to have anything to do with the bubble.
And I think that's unrealistic in this day and age,
considering the fact that there's no vaccine,
that we don't know when we're going to get a vaccine.
There is no-- there's not even any therapeutic treatment
to sort of alleviate the symptoms
that might come your way.
For me, it's just foolish for any athlete
to believe that they can operate any professional sports league,
that is to operate thinking that they will be able to do
it devoid of a bubble.
That's just not smart.
The NBA, Commissioner Adam Silver
in concert with Chris Paul, the president of the Players
Association, and Michele Roberts,
the executive director of the Players Association.
We gotta give them major, major props along with all the-- all
the players, LeBron, Kawhi, and Russell Westbrook, James
Harden, all of these cats.
They deserve all our respect, all the credit in the world,
because they've gotten in the bubble.
They've isolated themselves pretty
much from the rest of the world, which includes their family
and loved ones.
And you gotta remember the more success you have,
the longer you'll be in the bubble.
Now, after a month or so, you'll be
able to get people in because some teams will be going home,
all right?
And for all we know, some teams might
want to go home on purpose because they don't
want to be stuck in the bubble.
But in the end, what it comes down to, in all seriousness,
is that they deserve a lot of credit, man,
because they're making that sacrifice.
But it was also smart.
And I think that y'all can appreciate that,
because that's one of the reasons I took some heat
on-- on Twitter when cats like Kyrie
Irving and Dwight Howard-- good brothers, by the way--
were talking about, we wanted to concentrate
on social justice issues.
My point was, wait a minute.
You need to do both, not sacrifice
the rest of the season.
Because had they not gone back to play,
fellas, then the NBA would have had the license
to reopen the collective bargaining agreement
with their doomsday clause.
You rip up the old collective bargaining agreement,
you call them back to the table, you
say these are the billions we've accrued in losses,
these are the billions we anticipate corner losses.
As a result, we want you to take your fair share hit,
and it would have cost them billions, OK?
Plus, they would have tried to institute a hard salary cap.
I'm telling you what I know based on what owners told me.
If they had to rip up the collective bargaining agreement
and reopen those talks, they were
going to go for instituting a hard salary
cap similar to the NFL if the NBA season had not resumed.
So I'm saying I understand your heart is in the right place
from a social justice perspective,
but I've never seen a movement involving
black people that didn't involve black economic empowerment.
And if-- if there's anybody that's
black that's economically empowered, it's NBA players.
You don't give up that kind of leverage
because you've been asked to play two months in the--
in a bubble in Orlando, Florida.
You suck it up, and you do what you gotta do.
- That's fair. - Get your paper.
That's fair.
Yo, what about-- well, how you feel about the Knicks
pick for a new coach?
You feel that it makes a difference?
Or--
STEPHEN A SMITH: Well, first--
well, first of all, there's nowhere to go but up.
New York Knicks suck.
We know this.
They've sucked for a long time. - We're Knicks fans.
Lifetime. - I mean-- I mean, what--
the misery that they done you brothers
from the Bronx from Queens--
born in the Bronx, by the way, but raised in Queens.
I can not tell you how disgusted I've been with the New
York Knicks for so many years.
But Tom Thibodeau can coach.
He did a damn good job in Chicago.
He did a decent job in Minnesota.
He's gotta work on his player relations,
because he is tough as nails.
He lives, eats, and breathes basketball.
And sometimes you gotta know when to let up.
With the modern day player, you can't come at them too hard.
Once they're making these millions,
and engaging themselves on social media and beyond,
they ain't trying to hear you some days.
You gotta know that and work your way
and navigate through that terrain.
But ultimately, the man has won 59% of his games.
He's been in the playoffs for the vast majority
of his coaching career.
He was an elite assistant coach.
He's well respected and considered
an elite defense mind, and he knows how to develop players.
So it's gonna be up to Leon Rose, William Wesley,
and others to make sure that they're
able to help recruit the kind of talent
and make sure that Tom Thibodeau's old personality
doesn't invade the proceedings so you alienate
potential new talent that might be willing to come
to New York City.
You gotta play that political game.
It's something you need to make sure that you brought
for this roster, because, again, the New York Knicks have
sucked for quite some time.
And I'm tired of seeing them stinking up the joint.
So there's no way to go but up.
I got faith in them, and I'm wishing them well,
and I'll be rooting for them.
Listen, I'm gonna ask you a question that
might get you in hot water.
A lot of time in New York, a lot of time in Philly.
Best sports city out of those two.
Well, what I would tell you is it's
going to be Philly, even though I'm a native New Yorker.
And the reason why I'm gonna tell you it's--
it's Philly is because they've had more to cheer
about than New York has had.
Therefore, there's more evidence.
I mean, if you really, really think about it,
we've had to deal with Eli Manning
over the last several years.
Even though he's a two-time Super Bowl champion, the--
the Giants missed the playoffs six of the next seven years
or so-- or seven of the last-- next eight.
Don't get me started on the damn New York Jets.
All you need to know about the New York Jets
is that Joe Namath is still relevant, OK?
Then you sit up there--
we ain't paying too much attention to hockey, all right?
Then we go to the basketball route.
They-- New York Knicks have been so bad New York has said,
to hell with it.
Let's put a team off Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn, New York.
But hell.
Let's try something knew, because we
gave them enough of a chance.
Let's put them by the Navy Yard.
Exactly.
Meanwhile-- meanwhile, Phillies won a world series in 2008.
The Eagles won a Super Bowl--
what is it, 2016 or so, something like that?
You know-- you know, the Flyers have been relevant.
Obviously the Philadelphia 76ers--
AI, those great years he gave you before.
And now you got Embiid, and Simmons, and those boys there.
So Philadelphia's had more to cheer about.
But more importantly, they've had a complex, because people
have looked at them as second class compared
to the New Yorkers or whatever.
So as a result, it really elevates
their level-- you know, that rabid fan base that they have.
And they're far more interested.
I'm not saying that New Yorkers wouldn't be like that,
but damn it, we ain't had no evidence
to prove that as of yet.
So at this particular moment in time,
New York is-- is sandwiched by Philadelphia and Boston.
And I think both cities are better sports town by virtue
of the fact that they've got organizations
that-- that have given their fan base
a better product to cheer for.
- Ah! - That's true.
That is true.
Stephen, do you think LeBron's gonna do it this year?
Do you think he's pulling it off?
You know what? I'm nervous.
You said he was in trouble.
I seen you tweeted that.
He-- I'm--
I'm nervous, because here's the thing.
I picked the Lakers to win at the beginning of the season.
The Clippers, clearly, are the best team.
They're clearly the better team.
There is no question about that.
But my position is is that when you
got two of the top five players on a planet in LeBron and AD,
you can overcome a lot.
There were times we looked at the Chicago Bulls,
and we thought a team may have been better,
whether it was-- it was Portland, or Phoenix,
or Seattle, or Utah.
We thought somebody might be better.
They didn't have MJ.
My attitude is I don't give a damn.
Kawhi is great.
He's a two-time champion, two-time NBA Finals MVP,
but to me, he ain't LeBron, not when it really, really counts.
So for me, I want to give the Lakers the edge.
The problem is you got LeBron and AD on the opener Thursday
night, and the Clippers don't have Montrezl Harrell.
They don't have Lou Williams.
All right?
And still, it takes you coming down to the wire
in order to beat them.
That makes me nervous.
Not to mention, Paul George is healthy now,
and we keep forgetting this brother Paul George is a star.
He might not be LeBron, but he is a star in the NBA
that can drop 30 on you per night.
Stephen A, I'm gonna be your Max right now.
That final-- the final-- - Well, that means you lost.
You know that means-- you know that's an automatic L, right?
You know that's an automatic L, right?
That means I'm about to take an L?
You know what I'm saying?
Let's say, that's an automatic L for you right there.
Listen, you seen the last-- the closing
moments of that game, though.
LeBron turned into LeBron.
He was, like, missed the bank, got his own rebound for the--
But that's what I'm saying.
You know what I mean?
Clamp-- put the clamps on Kawhi.
I hear where you're coming from, but here's--
yeah, but here's the problem.
It was required without Lou Williams and Montrezl Harrell.
That's the problem.
Yeah.
And then you gotta take into account this too,
Avery Bradley, elite on ball defender and can hit some 3's
for you.
He elects not to participate in these games
because he's got a six-year-old that had a respiratory issue,
and he didn't want to go to the bubble,
and therefore risk endangering his kid.
I hope he changes his mind, because you can
change your mind and come back.
But I doubt that's gonna be the case.
Rajon Rondo goes down so he's hurt.
All right.
So what happens there?
Even though he's anticipated to be back,
you're talking about a load that's
gonna be placed on the shoulders of LeBron James.
And let's not forget, last time we checked,
the Houston Rockets was around a fourth or the fifth seed.
If the Lakers are the number one seed,
then it's entirely plausible that they face Houston
before they get a chance to look at the Clippers
in a conference finals.
And I got news for you.
Y'all can sleep on James Harden and Russell Westbrook
all you want to, but I'm not.
I'm not at all.
You can't underestimate them brothers.
You like the Harden-- the triple--
triple step-back 3?
That's your--
Listen, he-- he's one of--
he is one of the greatest scorers
this game has ever seen.
I mean, he's just a magician.
He can hurt you from 3's.
He can get to the basket.
He can pull up mid-range.
He goes to the free throw line more than 10 times
per game over the last six years and counting.
And oh, by the way, he hits 85% of his free
throws once he gets there.
James Harden's the real deal, bro.
And oh, by the way, Russell Westbrook, all you gotta
do is ask him not to shoot 3's.
He can do everything else.
Everything else. DESUS: That's true.
That's true. - He can get to the hold.
He's unstoppable.
He's averaging 28 a game.
He can hit pull-up perimeter mid-range jump shots.
He's virtually unstoppable during the break.
He can hit free throws.
He can defend.
And we all know that brother got nothing but heart.
If nothing else, he got heart.
And we know he's not limited to just heart.
But he got that too.
I will not sleep on Houston at all in the Western Conference.
Obviously, Milwaukee's in the East.
That's the team to beat in the East.
Let me change my little betting arrangement here.
Hey, Stephen, it's been a great interview.
We know you're a busy man.
We're gonna let you go continue your day.
We want to thank you for being on our show.
It's been a long time coming. - Yo.
Appreciate you, brother. - No doubt--
Yo.
Everyone on our show is an illustrious guest.
What would you like your neon sign to say?
My neon sign?
In today's day and age, "vote."
How about that? - Vote.
- Vote. - That's important right there.
That's heart. That's heart.
Listen to Stephen A!
All right? - Vote.
Vote.
All the best to all of y'all now.
Stay off that weed!
All right?
Off the weed.
DESUS: Yo, give it up for our guy, Stephen A Smith.
BX boys, the Queens. - All right, y'all.
Keep doing your thing, man.
New York City in the house!
My guy.