FanHouse StephenASmith

Apparently, Stephen A. Smith (described by the Toronto Star's Doug Smith as "a prominent ESPN analyst known for his loud delivery and over-the-top commentary") called Raptors star Chris Bosh "soft," and to assert his point compared the NBA's 10th leading scorer (Bosh, that is) to ... Manute Bol, a gentleman to be credited for his political work of behalf of change in Darfur but otherwise existed as a basketball sideshow, a fellow who never averaged more than 3.9 points a game.

Bosh, you'll understand, bristled at the comparison.

"If you have respect for someone, you expect that same respect back," Bosh said yesterday. "If you're a classless person like that, I mean, I guess that shows how you are, what kind of person you really are. ... I don't have to prove anything to that guy, plain and simple. If that's what he wants to do, that's what he's going to do. If that's what makes him happy, to try to bring other people down, good for him."

The Toronto chapter of the Stephen A. Haters Club has expanded. President and founder Rasho Nesterovic must be overjoyed.

The gnarly print-and-ink caterpillar known as Stephen A. Smith has completed his transformation into a beautiful television butterfly, as the Philadelphia Inquirer has taken away his column, says Phawker (via Deadspin, who has the expected hilarious take on this).

Somewhat hilariously for those of us who don't really care for Stephen's full effort -- let alone what a half-assed afterthought his deadwood efforts have become, the Inquirer offered him a position as a general assignment reporter on the sports desk. As in, "Enjoy the World Team Tennis finals." Of course someone as important as Smith would never take the position, given his contract with ESPN to yell at us about a middling Slovenian center appear as an NBA analyst.

So yeah, I think we'll be getting a bigger dose of Stephen A. due to this, if that's even possible. It's easy to ignore a newspaper column -- hell, I'm the Philly 'beat' guy for FanHouse NBA, and I've quoted one Smith column the past seven months (and its central assertion was proven very false). Once Terrell Owens and Allen Iverson left town, Smith's well essentially went dry. But Stephen A.'s gotta bake that bread, which means he'll be in our little picture boxes more than ever. Great.

UPDATE: The Inquirer confirms the report, with editor William K. Marrimow saying "we want him to return to reporting." SAS is on vacation, though. I will be disappointed if there isn't a giant public flameout.

Without a doubt, the highlight of the 2006 Draft was the heckling of ESPN's Stephen A. Smith. In fact, it became a YouTube sensation thanks to Deadspin. Before this year's draft, NY Magazine said the hecklers wouldn't be in the building to harrass SAS, but one of them snuck in. And he was brilliant. Enjoy:



Joakim Noah: The People's Princess. That's just gold.

To be honest, towards the end of the clip, I started feeling bad for SAS. On second thought, naaaaaaaaah.

(This, hopefully, concludes our round-the-clock coverage of Stephen A. Smith.)

Previously on FanHouse:
The Inspiration of Stephen A. Smith
Spike Lee and Stephen A. Smith Approve of Knicks/Portland Trade