A picture of Stephen A. Smith playing solitaire during the NBA Finals may not be worth a thousand words, but it perfectly captures the modern media landscape in numerous ways, making it worthy of immortalization.
Is this a thinkpiece about a dude playing solitaire? You bet it is! Buckle your seatbelts and hold on tight.
Stephen A. Smith is stretching himself so thin that he’s making Slenderman look like Jabba the Hut. His current roles include being the centerpiece of First Take every weekday on ESPN, where his ability to have a very loud, very strong opinion on anything and everything has made him a $100 million man thanks to his new five-year contract with the World Wide Leader in Sports.
However, his new contract also affords him the flexibility to pursue all of his other interests, which are numerous. Smith has his eponymous podcast, which he is trying to grow into its own empire. Now, he will soon add a daily SiriusXM radio show on weekday afternoons, replacing Michelle Beadle and Cody Decker, which came as news to them.
Then there is politics. Stephen A. Smith has inserted himself into the daily political conversation thanks to his frequent appearances on cable news. He has been a frequent contributor on NewsNation alongside disgraced cable news castoffs Chris Cuomo and Bill O’Reilly. He is a recurring guest of friend Sean Hannity’s on Fox News. He has gotten every ounce of juice he can out of the “will he or won’t he run for POTUS” rumors, contradicting himself so many times that it’s impossible to say where his head is at or what his political affiliation even is at the moment. It probably doesn’t even matter because the truth is that Stephen A. Smith’s only affiliation remains to himself.
Oh, and there are also his acting cameos on General Hospital and, most recently, Law & Order.
It’s no wonder that Smith himself admitted on Friday’s edition of First Take just how tired he is, leading him to show up to his nationally televised show in his pajamas.
pic.twitter.com/xavbvGvuPU
— Vid Clip Hero (@VidClipHero) June 16, 2025
“You know what, man? I’ve been traveling so much. I don’t know what the hell I was gonna wear. I’m seriously, I’ve been traveling so much. I’m so damn tired, man. I can’t even put into words, but I’m here. I’m here in my pajamas,” Smith said.
With all of that going on, how could any living human being be totally engaged in something as “insignificant” as the NBA Finals?
Stephen A. Smith made his name as a basketball journalist. Even though his trolling of the Dallas Cowboys may draw more eyeballs, his bona fides were established covering the NBA. However, given the scope of his personal empire, perhaps basketball has passed him by.
Not the drama, not the celebrity, but the actual game. Stephen A. Smith still lives for the GOAT talk between Jordan and LeBron, still enjoys calling out superstars, and still thrives on the daily drama that the NBA offers.
But as for the actual game itself? It seems that it no longer does it for him. If he isn’t enthralled by the basketball being played by the Oklahoma City Thunder and Indiana Pacers, then so be it. Sure, it’d be different if it was the Knicks vs. Lakers, but it is what it is.
And that’s totally fine! Do your politics, do your radio show, do First Take. But stop trying to force yourself on America as a basketball authority if you no longer care about the product as much as you used to.
What was more puzzling than Stephen A. Smith being caught on his phone during the NBA Finals was his reaction to it. He tried to blow it off as multi-tasking and passing time during timeouts. But that wasn’t true. Anyone who has seen the video can see that he is doing it while the game is live.
Perhaps he is taking a cue from the political world and Donald Trump in presenting his own version of reality as “alternative facts.”
Yep! That’s me. Who would’ve thought….I can multi-task. Especially during TIMEOUTS! Hope y’all are enjoying the NBA Finals.
This is going 7 games now, peeps! https://t.co/nLdWJf5vqf
— Stephen A Smith (@stephenasmith) June 14, 2025
Anyone caught playing games on their phone at work would expect to be pulled aside by their supervisor and told to stop wasting company time. But what about when you are being paid $100 million to cover the best basketball players in the world? Is that why SAS was being so defensive? Or is there something more at stake here?
We could easily go down the road of the audacity of Stephen A. Smith being bored at work covering the NBA Finals, a dream gig that anyone who has ever cared or covered basketball would trade places for in a heartbeat. However, that’s not even the main issue here.
The main issue is ESPN still revolving its basketball coverage around a guy who barely seems interested in it. And that’s a problem that cannot be reconciled.
Smith has shown us how little he cares for today’s NBA time and again throughout this season. His major contribution to the basketball world in the last 12 months is a personal feud with LeBron James. He offers nothing of substance beyond the same tiresome debates about superstars and legacies and trying to trade everyone to the New York Knicks (whose roster he may or may not be entirely up to speed on).
And when it comes to talking about today’s actual stars in the league, it quickly devolves into the same ridiculous cycle we have seen for years where everyone else has to take a backseat to SAS’s Main Character Syndrome. Smith doesn’t know enough about today’s NBA to actually cover Tyrese Haliburton. But he knows enough about the modern media and how to play the game to talk down to him like he’s some kind of mob boss. The names change, but the act remains the same.
Basketball fans deserve better. Let Stephen A. Smith play his solitaire at peace and send him home for the NBA Finals. Let him work on his politics, his radio show, his podcast, and his acting career. But give his NBA Finals chair to somebody who actually cares enough to watch the game.