At a recent event, Boston Celtics star Jaylen Brown publicly called out ESPN's Stephen A. Smith while calling the network "unethical" and challenging him to a debate. Smith has now responded in about the way you would expect.
On the latest episode of his show, Smith admonished Brown for his comments and challenged him to a debate on his own show. His main condition was that it be done on his set.
“He’s so full of (expletive) I want to throw up. Suddenly we’re unethical, because we’re telling you how your comments came across. No wonder your ass is in France. You can’t deal with the heat here in America and justify the way you’ve acted since you got bounced out of the playoffs. Nobody’s done anything to you, Jaylen Brown,” Smith said.
“This should be an indication to you of how small people can become. I’m unethical. I’m the leader. ESPN, the entire network, with all the love the network shows you. We’re all unethical and I’m the leader. I didn’t know you would come across as that soft, bro. You want to talk about accountability and all of that other stuff? Fine, dog. You’re welcome to come on the show.”
Smith vs. Brown
Smith and Brown have been feuding for over a month now, largely starting with some back-and-forth over Brown publicly complaining about the officiating during the NBA playoffs. Things snowballed from there, with Brown going on his livestream and accusing Smith of being "the face of clickbait media" and a slew of other things.
Brown tried to get Smith to agree to debate him on his livestream, but that went nowhere.
Things finally reached the boiling point during an event in France, where Brown said this:
“ESPN is unethical, and Stephen A. Smith is the head face of that, but the organization (and) the players, they were all in agreeance,” Brown said. “They all knew what I meant by that. Our team was basically salary dumped. We lost a lot of players.”
Both men have thrown the gauntlet and we'll see which of the two men decides to pick it up first. It's entirely possible that neither one does and this whole thing just became a brief saga a long offseason.
