Stephen A. Smith (4:35)
Couple of things. Number one to address JJ Redick, the person. JJ Redick doesn't suffer fools. And he's a brilliant, brilliant basketball mind. Very smart, very intellectual, prides himself on being an intellectual. And so when JJ Redick essentially, in that second sound of him saying, I have my thoughts, but I'll keep it to myself, when he was talking about his art rate hadn't changed, et cetera, et cetera, I can tell you what J.J. redick's thinking about. He's thinking about film, he's thinking about analytics that he reads up on. He's thinking about the nuances of the game of basketball that ultimately made him a head coach. And he's saying he knows that is something that Charles Barkley doesn't necessarily do. So he doesn't know more than I know. Please. That's how he's thinking about it. Charles Barkley is a bottom line kind of individual. He's a Hall of Famer, he's one of the greatest players to have ever played, 75th anniversary team, etc. Etc. Olympic gold medalist, a member of the original Dream Team, One of the great, great forwards in the history of basketball whose credentials speak for itself, even though he's devoid of a championship. And Charles Barkley is a results oriented dude that's looking at a Los Angeles Lakers team that ain't going no damn place. One that bounced out in five games in the first round last year against Denver. He's looking at those kind of things and he's saying, don't come to me with all of this technical, this analytical stuff and all of that. You guys suck, period. That's how Charles Barkley is thinking. Now let me into the fray first on a complimentary part. I don't think JJ Redick is doing a bad job. They're 20 and 16. They're top six seed in the Western Conference, okay? And I think that the things that are happening with the Los Angeles Lakers are not of his doing. I think if he had better talent, he'd do better. The issue with that is one could say the same thing about Frank Vogel. One could say the same thing certainly about Darvin Ham. Darvin Ham, as he articulated just a couple of weeks ago, came near his first year. He got him to the Western Conference finals. After that, despite a bevy of injuries and other issues, they won the in season tournament. They got to play in, went through the playing, got to the playoffs, and the only reason they got bounced out in five games and went home was because they were playing against the reigning NBA champions at the time. The Denver Nuggets, who had swept them in the Western Conference finals the year before and took them out in five this go round. So when you're looking at Darvin Ham and the job that he did, you could easily ask, why is he gone now, J.J. redick, what he has to own up to, and I don't fault him at, for this at all. This is all on LeBron James. This part that I'm about to mention is all on LeBron James. How the hell you gonna have a podcast about basketball and the nuances and the expertise and the intricacies of basketball with JJ Redick, who you knew was aspiring to be a head coach and you knew you wanted your coach, Dolphin, Ham out. How you gonna do that and think that ain't gonna look cool? Yeah, come on now. I mean, LeBron James, that's the classic case of spitting in somebody's face and saying it's raining. It's the classic case of somebody passing gas religiously farting in your damn face and calling it perfume. That's what LeBron James did. Let's stop that. But that's not J.J. redick's fault. J.J. redick was an aspiring coach. Only experience he had was coaching his son in, you know, little league basketball. And he became the head coach of the Los Angeles. And let me stay for the record, not to throw any shade on anybody. I'm just telling you my personal belief. No inside information or anything like that. But if something walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, I'm not gonna call it a mongoose. When you offered Danny Hurley, I thought you wanted Danny Hurley as an organization until you offered him 11 million a year, he was a two time national champion, considered universally as arguably the greatest coach in college basketball. At this particular moment in time, since Mike Krzyzewski has stepped away from the game. Danny Hurley is that dude at UConn. And after all that success, you offer him 11 million. When Eric Spoelstra, Gregg Popovich, Steve Kerr, now Ty Lue and others were all getting paid over 14, 15 million dollars a year. Come on now. You wanted Danny Hurley that badly, you come up with more, more money than 11. But they didn't do that. And so because they didn't do that, the belief was you really didn't want him. You just used them as cover to get the guy who you really wanted, which was J.J. redick. But you wanted to gloss over that because you didn't want LeBron James and the Lakers organization. Look what so bad for wanting JJ Redick all along after LeBron James had made it so obvious that he was looking for a new coach other than Darvin Ham. That is the belief, period. There's no way around that. Having said that, back to JJ Redick and Charles Barkley in terms of what JJ Redick said about the media. And I was watching Colin Cowherd because I happen to respect the hell out of Colin Cowherd at Fox Sports. He's my former colleague. He's my colleague, my contemporary, my former colleague at espn and he did an outstanding job as a radio host for years for ESPN Radio. I've always considered us at ESPN suffering a loss by losing Colin Cowherd. And I forgot the name of the guy that's with him, Jason something, if I remember correctly. And he was talking about how tnt, you know, they, they messed up the game of basketball because they're so ultra critical. I call BS on that. When guys deserve to be celebrated, they celebrate you. When guys deserve to be criticized, they criticize you. Charles Barkley, Kenny Smith, Bernie Johnson, Shaquille O'Neal are exceptional. The Emmy award winners, they're the A listers. They're class personified. They don't get personal. They just talking about your game and what you put on display. And if that's what you put on display as a product, they didn't blame the league. I'd say you could blame the league because of the rule changes that were incorporated and the fact that you took defense, you compromised defense to some to a strong degree, by the way. You compromised opposing def defenses because you want it to be more viewer friendly. You wanted more offense. You wanted to, you know, basically bring more Europeans into the game. And by doing so you also incorporated more three point shooting. And when people are doing all of that and you see folks jacking up 3040 threes a game, that's not the most attractive thing to see, period. It's not a crime to point that out. Maybe they go a bit excessive with it because they having a good time and they're having fun. But the reality, JJ is that sometimes I'm not talking about the Lakers, I'm talking about overall. Sometimes we watch the game and it sucks. And here's where J.J. hurts himself. J.J. knows that's true. J.J. can bring up modern day, the modern day game compared to old school. And I get all of that. It was far more physical in the 80s and the 90s. The athletes weren't as great as they are today. They didn't run like Giselle's the way they do today, they didn't do a lot of things. I get all of that. But it doesn't take away from the fact that the game at times is less attractive than it once was. And it certainly doesn't take away from the fact that sometimes you look at dudes and you are questioning their effort, whereas before you did it because you couldn't, because players had to go out there and earn their money because the rules in terms of you getting your money didn't work in their favor. If they didn't put in that work, you certainly didn't get the endorsement dollars and the endorsement deals that you ultimately are able to get now if you didn't have success attached to it. So people like jj, who's been around long enough to see it, and along with the Cat, the crew at the. At the. At tnt, they all know it. It's not that they're right every time, but their points are not to be summarily dismissed. And so to blame the media. And this is another thing, too, and this has nothing to do with JJ Redick and has nothing to do with tnt. This is about these idiots. Social media. Everybody's a hater. You think we fools. You're just doing that because you're creating clickbait. Oh, he's a hater. Somebody disagreed and y'all had a discussion and it's the word. Destroyed this person, Destroyed this person. When all you're doing it is to create a headline and draw clicks. But then it goes a step further because you got former players that come out and go like, yo, you know what? Always hating on the brothers. Well, if you playing against a brother and I'm pointing out a brother, bust your ass. How the hell am I sitting up there hating on a brother? How am I not supporting the brother that whipped your ass? It don't make sense. But this is what people do. And so we have to pay attention to that and see that for what it is. That's the reality of the situation. We've had heightened level of sensitivity. People come up with all of this kind of shit to put to bitch and moan and complain about instead of dealing with the real issue. Are players playing as hard, Are they as committed? Do they take care of their bodies and their conditioning in the off season? Do you earn your money? Are you committed to earning your money? Do you come back with the next season with the same game you had last season, the same level of conditioning you had last season, et cetera? Do you do anything to improve? That's why we should marvel at LeBron James. It's not because of his dunks, his game, whatever. It's because of age 40. Still, from age 17, 18, 19, 20, all the way to 40, LeBron James always is ready, conditioning wise. He doesn't cheat the game. But JJ, there's quite a few people who do. So JJ's not totally wrong because we should heighten our level of sensitivity in terms of excoriating the game. But that don't mean we got to put blinders on and ignore what the hell we're seeing. And I think that's important to say.
