WATCH: Stephen A. Smith Dares Kyrie Irving To Two-Hour Debate After Twitter Rant: ‘I’ll Come On Your Own Damn Podcast’
Stephen A. Smith warned Brooklyn Nets star Kyrie Irving he’d be in a world of trouble come Friday morning, and sure enough the TV personality did not disappoint, ripping into Irving over his Thursday Twitter rant.
If you haven’t seen the Twitter outburst, Irving went off on the media’s coverage of modern day athletes, calling out the “puppet masters” for disparaging athletes.
I send shots at the puppet masters, not the puppets. All puppets do is run around society, trying to gain popularity and state opinions. What a life! 🤷🏾♂️
My name is worth billions to these media corporations. My brothers and sisters who deal with this know exactly what I mean.
— A11Even (@KyrieIrving) April 28, 2022
The outburst sparked much controversy across the sports media world, including with Smith, who called out Kyrie for his comments on First Take, daring him to meet Smith on common ground.
“I’m happy to have that discussion, name the time and place, I’ll show up. Kyrie can invite whoever he wants to, all right,” an irritated Smith said. “Kyrie can come up here, I promise you, I’ll do the same thing I did for Colin Kaepernick.
Irving had “an open invitation” to join him on the show, Smith continued, promising to give him “two hours of unedited live television.”
“I dare you to sit aside from me and justify the nonsense that you put up,” Smith issued a challenge to the basketball star. “I’ll come on your own damn podcast, okay. I’ll come with you and [Kevin Durant], you can’t defend what you do, you can’t defend your inactivity, your negligence as a professional in terms of your unwillingness to show up to work.”
Smith continued on his rant about Irving, shouting out his “brothers” Stephen Jackson and Matt Barnes, co-hosts of the All The Smoke podcast, with whom he admits don’t always see eye-to-eye but he respects nonetheless as “real brothers” who will “hold you accountable if you’re wrong.”
You see, real knows real. When you hang out with the right people, when you associate yourself with the right people, you don’t have to worry about the clothes that you wear, who you are, what you represent and where you’re coming from.
There have been times a guy like Stephen Jackson for All The Smoke have gotten on me and people sitting up there, ‘oh Stephen Jackson’, they don’t realize I love that brother because he real, he ain’t fake, he ain’t phony. I don’t agree with him sometimes but I got love for him because he comes from a unique place and he got something to say, he gon’ roll up on you and say it. He ain’t going to hide and send some representative or anything like that, he’s gon’ do it.
So is Matt Barnes and that’s why everybody should listen to their podcast because they’re special dudes. We don’t have to agree all the damn time but I know they’re real and authentic.
The ESPN host shifted his focus back to Irving and his resume since leaving Cleveland and LeBron James in 2017:
It’s based on Kyrie’s resume. It’s based on what Kyrie has done since winning the chip, what have you done?
You sat up there and you forced your way out of Cleveland, you sat up there and threw LeBron James under the bus then apologized. You departed from Boston after making a promise to stay and left but then you want to castigate their fan base. You go to Brooklyn and don’t show up to work more than half the time but you got your hand out for the money but somehow some way we’re puppets. Why are we puppets? Why? Because we actually work for our money and don’t take time off every chance we get?
This is who Kyrie is and this is who he has become. He has not progressed, he has regressed, ok?
Watch the full six minutes above via ESPN
