Stephen A. Smith once implored Kyrie Irving to retire from the NBA over his refusal to take the jab. Now, with Irving on the doorstep of the NBA finals, Smith is apologizing.
In his attempt to make amends, Smith mentioned Kenny Smith’s conversation with him about Kyrie and went on to say that Kenny’s brother helped train the ESPN host in basketball and was one of the reasons he was able to secure a full ride to Winston-Salem State.
“My boy Kenny Smith and I go back decades. His brother Vincent Smith used to train me,” Smith said on his podcast. “I got a scholarship, basketball scholarship, because of Vincent Smith.”
Jason Whitlock isn’t letting it slide and believes that was an important piece of information that should’ve been included in his memoir, what Whitlock calls a work of historical fiction.
“First time I’ve heard it, and you guys know how much time I’ve spent researching Stephen A. Smith, reading his memoir, tracking and monitoring what he has said and contradicted,” Whitlock says. “I’ve been tracking all of it, but I had never heard Stephen A. Smith assert that Kenny Smith’s brother is responsible or played a role in him getting a full-ride basketball scholarship.”
Whitlock then went and refreshed his memory, going back to the two times Kenny Smith was referenced in Smith’s memoir.
“Along the way, there’s an inordinate number of friendships I’ve been blessed to have with colleagues at ESPN, as well as people who don’t work at ESPN: Snoop Dogg; Jamie Fox; Charlie Mac; Michael Ealy; Charles Barkley; Shaq; Kenny Smith,” Smith wrote in memoir.
That was the first reference.
“I just didn’t have the money (or the talent) for those travel and AAU programs, like the Gauchos or Riverside. They were reserved for the young phenoms I knew about, from Rod Strickland, Dwayne ‘Pearl’ Washington, Mark Jackson, and Kenny Smith, then on to Kenny Anderson and Lloyd ‘Sweet Pea,’” Smith wrote in his second reference.
Not one mention of Kenny Smith’s brother helping Smith get a scholarship.
“That’s not the story Stephen A. Smith told in his book. He talked about a guy, either Howard or Harold Kit, taking him out on the playground in February in New York City and then driving him down to Winston-Salem State on a Sunday to try out in front of the big house games in the middle of their basketball season. That’s the story he told in his book,” Whitlock says.
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