Stephen A Smith: Tom Brady Shouldn't Get Punished For Belichick's Hall of Fame Snub

There's so much we could talk about, right?

But the first question I have for you is this the year your Knicks make it to the NBA Finals ?

I don't know, um, I did before the season began, um.

Cleveland picking up James Harden, I think it's a big deal because I think they'll have an elite backcourt with him and Donovan Mitchell.

They could do some things, but the team I'm worried about is the Detroit Pistons.

I think they're the number one team in the Eastern Conference right now.

They are no joke .

Uh, they've been balling, and I really, really believe in my heart of hearts, uh, that right now their athleticism, their size, their physicality, um.

You know, their perimeter shooting, their willingness to defend combined with Cade Cunningham being that kind of closer , um, they have something going on right now.

And here's the key element about them that I think makes them special.

They don't just want to win, they want the Knicks because the Knicks got them last year.

They really, really are tired of the Knicks and all of this talk about.

They want the Knicks, and I think that the Knicks truly need to embrace the fact that you're going up against a team that wants you bad.

They wanna bust your ass, and you're gonna have to stand up and, and, and answer the call.

And the last time you were in Detroit, you got blown out by 30, and you're going there this weekend, and we're gonna see what you're gonna do then.

They ain't playing.

They want the Knicks, you know, Bernie, you know, BJ Bickerstaff is the coach of the Detroit Pistons.

When they were out of the playoffs, he was on First Take, filling in, being a contributor and all that stuff, and the man couldn't stop talking about how much they want the Knicks.

He's not playing.

And they're not playing and so you gotta step up.

It's almost it's almost like going into a boxing ring and it's like it's one thing where somebody's there to do their job it's another thing when they are incentivized in an elevated way to hurt you.

That's what's going on with Detroit.

New York has to embrace that.

Otherwise they're gonna get themselves beat down.

That's what they gotta watch out for.

Well, you just mentioned James Harden making a move to Cleveland.

Another move that's been made, Chris Paul, one of the greatest point guards ever.

I would love to know your thoughts on how things have transpired for him so far this season.

He is one of the greatest point guards that ever lived.

He's a top 10 point guard of all time, um, and he deserved better than what the Cleveland, what the Los Angeles Clippers did to him.

You want to let him go, that's fine.

It's no problem.

You're moving in a different direction.

You got your roster.

There's no problem.

You're telling me that you had to wait till you left LA to go to Atlanta to send him home in the middle of the road trip like he's some malcontent that got in trouble with the law or something like that and you're dismissing him from the team.

You could not have come to him before you went on a road trip and say, listen, we made this decision, we're gonna let you go.

What would you like us to do?

Would you like us, do you want to come with us and then leave?

Do you want to stay home?

What would you like us to do?

You couldn't have shown him that respect.

He deserves that.

Um, and it's not just because of who he's been over the totality of his career.

What about what he meant to the Clippers?

What about him and Lob City with Blake Griffin, DeAndre Jordan and those boys?

Yeah, they never achieved championships and all that, but they weren't scrubs.

They performed, um, and, and they were a box office attraction when you saw about Lob City.

He, they made the Clippers relevant again, right?

And they were beating up on the Lakers those years, uh, while that was going on, when the Lakers were on the downside.

So he didn't deserve better than that.

That's what I'm trying to say, you know, Respect isn't hard to give and it shouldn't be hard to give to somebody who's earned it like he has.

And I think the fact that they didn't do that really, really left a bad taste in my mouth personally.

Well, let's switch over to the NFL.

You just mentioned people earning their spots, right?

So.

We just had TO join us yesterday and he had something very interesting to say.

He said that because of how the Hall of Fame treated Bill Belichick, Tom Brady should not be a first ballot Hall of Famer.

I would love to know your thoughts on that.

He's wrong.

Um, there is no excuse.

To leave Tom Brady out.

Two wrongs don't make a right.

If Bill Belichick gets snubbed.

That doesn't mean you snub Tom Brady.

You know, it means you recognize the fact that you should have never snubbed Bill Belichick.

You should have never snubbed owner Robert Kraft, who's owned the team for 32 years and been in the Super Bowl now for 1111 times, an average of 1 every 3 years, who's got 6 Super Bowl championships on his resume, and, and.

Now 10 trips to the Super Bowl.

That doesn't mean that you snub, you don't snub them just because, or you don't, you, just because you snubbed them that you snub Tom Brady.

Tom Brady is a 7-time Super Bowl champion.

If you're going to snub Tom Brady, you might as well burn the Hall of Fame house down because there's no justification for that.

You can't do something like that.

There's no excuse for it.

There's no way around it.

So tell me a little bit more about what you got going on on Sirius XM.

And every and all the shows you've got going on, well, I got, um, Sirius XM Mad Dog Sports Radio.

I do my sports show every weekday from 1 to 3 p.m. Eastern Standard Time, and it re-airs from 6 to 8 p.m. Eastern Standard Time.

So I come on before Mad Dog Russo, and then after that I come, I, uh, after Mad Dog Russo does his.

Show that he leads into my re-air.

So I'm doing that.

I've got a weekly political show on Sirius XM POTUS Radio Channel 124, which is every Wednesday night from 6 to 8 p.m. Eastern Standard Time where I talk about social commentary, politics, pop culture, and entertainment.

No sports though.

And I love it this way.

And so I've got two separate shows that I'm doing.

Um, it's been successful at.

I executive produced both.

Both are under my umbrella for my production company Straight Shooter Media.

Um, so I'm really, really happy with the way things are going and what I'm doing, and the goal is to continue to shine.

And final question for you that I've asked all the guests we've had so far with everything you've.

Accomplished what's keeping Steven A going?

Well, I'm passionate about what I do.

I happen to enjoy my life.

I enjoy what I've achieved.

I've been very blessed by God, no doubt about it.

Uh, a lot of luck, a lot of blessings have come my way, uh, but in the same breath I know I worked my ass off and so you continue to work hard and it's easy, it's a lot easier to work hard when you love what you're doing.

Than when you hate what you're doing or you dislike what you're doing.

That's the difference between a career and a job in my estimation.

A job is doing what you have to do to sustain or elevate your quality of life.

A career is doing what you want to do and it just so happens to do those things.

And so for me I have a career because I'm doing the things that I wanna do and I have a lot of enjoyment at it as long as I get my sleep.

And I stay in the gym and I'm in good health, then I'm gonna be feeling good about what I'm doing because I'm not gonna be bad health wise, which means I'm gonna have the energy to continue to perform at a very, very high level and that's what I strive to do.

Smith, thank you so much for your time.

Thank you, my brother.

Appreciate you, man.