J.R. Smith Fires Back At Stephen A. Smith's Rant About Wearing a Hoodie, Trayvon Martin
J.R. Smith took to Twitter on Saturday morning to call out ESPN's Stephen A. Smith for "reaching" in a rant about the Cavaliers guard wearing a hoodie on the bench and how it would remind white fans about the fatal 2012 shooting of Trayvon Martin.
Below is a transcription of the relevant parts of Stephen A. Smith's rant on his radio show this week:
"In Game 1, when they played against Boston, J.R. Smith was sitting on that bench in the fourth quarter with a hoodie on. I don't know why the hell Nike made these damn uniforms that have hoods attached to it by the way. You've got a lot of those white folks in the audience that are going to think this is Trayvon Martin being revisited and I'm not joking about it. The bench is no place for someone to be wearing a hoodie. I have no problem with hoodies. People shouldn't be stereotyped or stigmatized for wearing a hoodie."
"But the bench...for a basketball player sitting on the bench with his team. That is no place for a hoodie. I don't know why the hell Nike did that. They need to get rid of those damn hoodies. There's no place for a hoodie. A hoodie shouldn't be attached to a uniform that you can wear on the bench during a game but J.R. Smith had it on and he wasn't happy. And psychologically, he can't deal with the relegation to the degree that Dwayne Wade can deal with it."
You can listen to the full comments below:
[youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1gMRUAPFsoc]
Smith responded with the following tweets:
Smith has started just two games for the Cavaliers on the season. He is averaging 4.8 points, 3.8 rebounds and 2.0 assists per game.
