Stephen A. Smith thinks Mike D'Antoni owes Kobe Bryant a public apology

[OG LeeTSkeeT]

NBA players tweet big deal...media just always blows shit out of proportion. Just happens to Kobe because of his rep.

[Iceberg Slim]

how did stephen a smith even get a job

[Rose'sACL]

Imagine you are playing a game and your best player, who is not playing, is criticizing the way you guys are playing PUBLICLY. Save it for the locker room.

Does that foster any good feelings, or resentment?

Don't have blinders over your eyes. This was a bad move from their leader. He is putting the team on blast while not helping the team. Makes no sense.

don't tell people here that. i bet most lebron and kobe "fans" here buy their shoes too. player worship here is worse than ESPN boards.

[Foster5k]

how did stephen a smith even get a job

Because you guys are sitting here talking about him right now. He has done his job.

How many other "sports talk guys" get this much attention? Some of you probably don't even know their names. SAS is paid to entertain. Sports is entertainment.

That being said, SAS gets a lot of heat for talking about race topics. He is one of the FEW guys that will do it. I commend him for that. Race is still an issue in sports, etc. Hell, look at some of these racist topics/replies that come here and there on ISH. Whatever you say about SAS, most of what he says has some relevance if not a lot of relevance to what's actually going on in the real world. Don't know what world some of you are living in.

Is he a racist? No. However, as he said, anytime you bring up race related topics you can get labled a racist. Hence, some here think he is a racist.

[316MIA]

Mike D'Antoni shouldn't have responded to the question in the first place. You can tell he's offended by Kobe calling out his system. The fact that he ran pick-n-roll yesterday was a joke considering that it hasn't worked all season long, so why do it now? And against the Spurs of all teams

[KyleKong]

The Lakers were playing for a playoff spot, they needed Kobe on the floor.

Kobe got hurt, end of story.

[AngelEyes]

SAS is an entertainer now, in the 90's and early 00's he was a journalist.

[Burgz V2]

i think this is just a major overreaction

overreaction in Laker Land and of course ESPN thrives on this type of stuff

everyone needs to relax its not that big a deal

[Goldrush25]

This is part of SAS's schtick. He says things that are over the top, that's why ESPN employs him.

Surely he knows that a coach is not going to apologize to a player, don't care who that player is. A coach must always maintain the role of an authoritative figure and he cannot allow players, no matter how great, to undermine him.

The whole situation is unfortunate, but I agree with the poster above. Everyone is overreacting to this crap. It ultimately means nothing.

[lpublic_enemyl]

lol d antoni has bigger problems

[AlphaWolf24]

April 2013 join date argument, is quite an irrelevant one. It is a classic red herring. Just as stupid as using race, age, or sex as a predicate for an argument.

Anyways, when it comes to Kobe's tweets, I think of the old saying "with great power comes great responsibility." Celebrities/sports figures have a great deal more power and visibility in social media, and it is for this reason they should probably filter themselves and think for maybe a minute or two before they put something out there. Lebron, and now Kobe are equally guilty of twitter vomit.

Yeah, Kobe can say what ever he wants. Doesn't mean there won't be unintended consequences.

[Knicksfever2010]

stephen a LOVESSSS to knock white guys

[TheReturn]

Clearly blown way out of proportion, but I do agree with him, it's a bit disrespectful to write Kobe off as a fan.

[TheReturn]

Double post due to internet issues..

[wang4three]

Stephen A should be calling out Derrick Rose for sitting out while guys on his team are playing hurt and fatigued. He did the same to Jeremy Lin last year.