Stephen A. Smith is at the center of another controversy. This one is worse than most.
On his self-titled podcast Wednesday, the ESPN personality questioned whether the Los Angeles Lakers could win with what he described as “a bunch of white dudes” on the roster. He was reacting to the team’s free agency signings of Walker Kessler and Sandro Mamukelashvili, on top of returning stars Luka Doncic and Austin Reaves.
“Where the hell the Los Angeles Lakers think they’re going with a bunch of white dudes,” Smith said. “Your three top players are white dudes? Really? This ain’t golf. This ain’t baseball. Hell, it ain’t even soccer. This is basketball. In NBA history, when have you seen your three most prominent players on a basketball player be white? And that takes you to the promised land?”
The clip was posted directly to Smith’s own X account, complete with the caption “3 WHITE DUDES?! The Lakers Really Think THIS Can Win a Championship?” He was not hiding from the take. He was leading with it.
The backlash was immediate. Judging players by the color of their skin rather than their production is a textbook definition of racial bias. That principle does not have carve-outs based on who is doing the judging. Fans, other analysts, and even some ESPN colleagues privately expressed disbelief that this was aired in that framing.
The basketball case Smith is trying to make is actually reasonable if you strip out the language. NBA history is full of great teams with great Black stars. That is a data point. It is not a rule about who can win now. Nikola Jokic just won two MVPs and a title. Luka Doncic has a Finals appearance already. Sabonis, Sengun, Wembanyama, Antetokounmpo. The league’s superstar class is more international and more diverse than it has ever been. That is a good thing for basketball, not a joke to be made at a team’s expense.
Smith has been down this road before. He has a long history of taking heat for provocative racial framings and then walking them back a day later on First Take. The pattern is familiar. Say the thing. Let it trend. Address it obliquely. Move on.
What is different this time is that Smith posted the clip himself, with the incendiary caption, before anyone was even upset. That is not a slip. That is content strategy.
The Lakers, for what it is worth, are led by Doncic and Reaves. Kessler is a top-five defensive center in the league. Mamukelashvili is a rotation big. If they win 50 games and go to the second round, none of Smith’s framing will matter. And if they win a title, we will get a very different Stephen A. Smith segment.
A longtime sports reporter, Carlos Garcia has written about some of the biggest and most notable athletic events of the last 5 years. He has been credentialed to cover MLS, NBA and MLB games all over the United States. His work has been published on Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, AOL and the Washington Post.
