ESPN commentator Stephen A. Smith is no stranger to having beef with NBA stars. It’s time to add Celtics guard Jaylen Brown to the list.
The latest dust-up started, naturally, on “First Take,” where Smith took aim at Brown for his comments following Boston’s playoff collapse.
Brown recently said this was his “favorite year,” despite the Celtics blowing a 3-1 series lead to the Philadelphia 76ers and getting eliminated in the first round of the NBA playoffs. That didn’t sit well with Smith, who made it very clear Thursday that he thought Brown should have kept that to himself.
“You got knocked out in the first round,” Smith said. “The Boston Celtics, one of the top two most storied franchises, if not the most storied franchise in the history of basketball, lost a 3-1 lead for the first time in its postseason history.”
Smith’s issue wasn’t just that Brown said it. It was the timing.
Boston had just been eliminated, Jayson Tatum was dealing with an Achilles injury and Brown was out there saying this season was his favorite.
“Twenty-four hours after losing a 3-1 lead and [he] says this was his favorite year,” Smith continued. “[They lost] three games at home. Three games at home.”
Smith then brought up Brown’s relationship with Tatum, noting that Tatum had appeared on “First Take” butFirst Take but hadn’t appeared on Brown’s Twitch stream.
“So in other words, Jayson Tatum showed up on First Take before he showed up on your damn show,” Smith said. “How? How?”
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Then came the line that set Brown off.
“The first order of business is that he needs to be quiet and… go on vacation unless you’re trying to get traded,” Smith said.
Brown didn’t wait long to respond.
“I’ll ‘be quiet’ / stop streaming if you ‘be quiet’ and retire let’s give the people what they want,” Brown wrote on X.
The post quickly went viral.
Brown didn’t just push back on Smith’s basketball criticism. He essentially told ESPN’s biggest personality that America has heard enough and that it might be time to hang up the microphone.
Smith, obviously, wasn’t going to let that go without firing back.
“Bro, I got love for you so I’m not going to even go there,” Smith wrote on X. “Folks are looking out for you and you don’t even realize it. Here you are making this kind of noise and it hasn’t even been a week since you lost a 3-1 lead. You’re HOME.”
Then Smith drove the point home.
“A champion and a Finals MVP saying his favorite season is the season he’s home in the FIRST ROUND. This is not about ME. It’s about YOU….and what YOU SAID. Enjoy your offseason.”
To be fair to Smith, the basketball point is obvious.
Brown is allowed to feel however he wants about his season. Maybe he enjoyed the challenge. Maybe he liked the chemistry the team built. Maybe he thinks everyone is misunderstanding what he meant.
But when you’re a Finals MVP on the Boston Celtics and your team just blew a 3-1 lead in the first round, saying it was your favorite season isn’t going to sit well with a lot of people and probably not with many Celtics fans.
That’s especially true when the franchise had never blown a 3-1 lead in the playoffs before and the team was the No. 2 seed in the East. Boston is just the fourth No. 2 seed to lose in the first round in the past 25 years. In other words: it was an inexplicable and historic collapse for a team with championship aspirations. That doesn’t usually lead to players calling it their “favorite” season.
At the same time, it’s easy to see why Brown’s response immediately picked up steam among social media users.
Smith has made a career out of telling athletes what they should say, what they shouldn’t say, when they should talk and when they should disappear. Eventually, one of those athletes was going to tell him the same thing back.
That’s exactly what Brown did.
And now Smith has another NBA feud on his hands. LeBron James, Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving have all had public back-and-forths with Smith over the years. Brown is just the latest star to decide he didn’t want to sit quietly while Stephen A. turned him into a topic.
Unfortunately for Brown, this benefits Smith much more than it benefits Brown. Smith’s public feuds with major NBA stars only serve to advance the notion that Smith is worth responding to. Indirectly, Brown is telling Smith that he matters (not that Smith needs anyone to tell him that).
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Obviously, Stephen A. Smith isn’t retiring because Jaylen Brown told him to. And he’s certainly not going to stop screaming into a microphone any time soon.
But for at least one afternoon, Brown said what plenty of athletes (and probably plenty of sports fans) have wanted to say to Smith for years.
Be quiet.
