Nets superstar Kyrie Irving has become one of the biggest stories of the year.
After making a highly controversial choice, the guy essentially disqualified himself from playing this season, a loss that the Nets will feel deeply.
Amid all the chaos that has stemmed from the situation, First Take’s Stephen A. Smith has been among the loudest voices in the crowd and has not made his stance unclear to anyone.
The whole situation has sparked a lot of debate and division among the community, especially for ESPN broadcaster Stephen A. Smith and former NBA star Stephon Marbury, who are currently engaged in a war of words.
It all started with a video by Marbury, who absolutely laid into Stephen A. as part of a rant that has gone viral online.
“It’s sad to hear Stephen A. Smith talk about Kyrie Irving the way how he’s talking about him. Calling him selfish — this man has done so much stuff. for human beings and giving back and trying to help so many different people of all different cultures.
This is what happens when you have people like this guy, who’s animated, not realistic about what it is that he speaks and talks about. He played a little bit of basketball, but come on, seriously? You letting this guy talk to you about sports? This guy never got hit in a football game, he never swung a bat, and this is the person who they have speaking and talking about what’s going on in sports? Man, you need to defund his voice.”
This isn’t the first time Stephen A. has been called out publicly by a former athlete, and he almost always takes the time to issue a response.
This occasion was no different, and Smith jumped on First Take on Friday to dish out his retort, which included a rather weird story about Marbury eating vaseline.
“I’m not going to go off on Stephon Marbury. But I will say that Stephon Marbury has had a problem with me since 2009 because we thought he was a bit bizarre when he was eating vaseline. Literally on video, like it was a bunch of cheeseburgers. Like gobbling vaseline, crying, later admitted he was depressed.
Stephon Marbury was somebody that was considered an incredible, tremendous talent, but who had leadership issues. And so it seems more than apropos that he would come to the support of Kyrie Irving…”
Whatever beef these two have, it seems to be being put on full display amid this Kyrie Irving frenzy. That story about eating vaseline is probably not something Marbury wanted to be resurfaced right now, especially because it may have involved a sensitive period in his life.
For now, Stephen A. has said the last word, and he said some pretty strong stuff. We’ll see soon enough, though, if Marbury ever responds.
