ESPN host Stephen Smith blasted the NBA’s Brooklyn Nets for succumbing to “white privilege” and hiring Hall of Famer Steve Nash as its new head coach.
“Ladies and gentlemen, there’s no way around this,” Smith said. “This is white privilege. This does not happen for a black man.”
I love Steve Nash! But……. pic.twitter.com/lo73hhoM0q
— Stephen A Smith (@stephenasmith) September 3, 2020
Smith admitted that Nash, who is a two-time league MVP, “deserves the job,” and acknowledged that the team’s two star players, Kyrie Irving and Kevin Durant, who are both black, supported the hire.
But, he said, there were several black candidates the Nets could have chosen.
“You just want to scream. You want to scream to high heavens. How the hell does this always happen for somebody else other than us?” Smith said.
Why is it that we have to be twice as good to get half as much?,” Smith complained. “Why is it that no matter what we do and how hard we work and how we go through the process and the terrain of everything, somehow, someway, there’s another excuse to ignore that criteria, to ignore those credentials, and instead bypass it and make an exception to the rule for someone other than us?”
The protests taking place in Democrat-run cities across the country are another symptom of this “frustration” that is “emanating from the black community and disenfranchised communities,” Smith argued.
“I’m depressed right now because I have to bring that up,” Smith added.
Smith’s ESPN colleague, Jay Williams, pushed back on Smith’s claim that white privilege was at play.
“Come on SA,” Williams, a former NBA player, said.
“Steve Nash being chosen over Mark Jackson/Ty Lue is not ‘white privilege’ … two superstar black athletes ultimately made the decision, and we know who they are and what they are about.”
Outkick founder Clay Travis agreed with Williams and argued that there is plenty of evidence that black athletes and coaches have just as much, if not more, opportunity in the league as white players.
Evidently forgetting all of the black former players who have gotten head coaching jobs in the NBA with limited coaching experience, Stephen A. Smith said Steve Nash got Nets job because of white privilege: https://t.co/6JOxS7EMKd
— Clay Travis (@ClayTravis) September 3, 2020
