ESPN personality Stephen A. Smith always finds a way to make headlines, and his latest came after he called out Charles Barkley for being a “flaming hypocrite” over the former NBA star’s critique of Smith’s oversaturation in the media as of late.
Smith has been a hard man to miss with appearances on various political talk shows, a guest spot on daytime soap opera “General Hospital,” and a cameo on “Law & Order.”
But Smith didn’t take too kindly to Barkley’s advice that essentially less is more and used the recent edition of his self-titled show, “The Stephen A. Smith Show,” to respond to Barkley, who he described as a “brother” and a person who is “as real and as authentic as it gets.”
“That’s my guy, but that doesn’t mean I always agree with him. And it doesn’t mean that I’m devoid of the right to call him a flaming hypocrite when it’s called upon,” Smith said. “Do y’all know how many commercials Charles Barkley does a year? He’ll tell us two. Have you seen Charles Barkley in two commercials? Are you kidding me? Oh, by the way, the cat that you work with at least twice a week during the NBA season is Shaquille O’Neal.
“Can we count the amount of endorsements he has? How often he’s seen everywhere? What new product he’s pitching? Did you say that about him? No, you didn’t. But when it comes to me, I need to be ‘careful.’”
There is certainly a case to be made that Smith is on people’s television screens too much, and that’s without making mention of the buzz — some of which has been hyped by Smith himself — about the ESPN talker running for president.
Though Smith took aim at Barkley and his criticism, he had a simple message for his soon-to-be ESPN colleague as “Inside the NBA” will move to the network next season.
“Charles Barkley, you continue to do the great job that you’ve been doing at TNT, and next year, it’ll start at ESPN,” Smirh said. “And let Shaq market the hell out of himself the way that he does significantly better than anybody on this planet. And let me do what I do.”