Jay Williams and Stephen A. Smith traded barbs over their “asinine” factors in a back-and-forth on “First Take,” which stemmed from feedback Smith made about Giannis Antetokounmpo.
The previous NBA level guard took challenge with Smith calling Antetokounmpo an “underachiever” final week, main Williams to name it “one of your worst takes” and that it “was horrible.”
“I think we really need to do a better job of reframing some of these conversations,” Williams stated on Monday’s episode. “If you were to say that the franchise, the Milwaukee Bucks, have underachieved or are the biggest underachievers with the talent of Giannis, fair. But a guy who has a 50-point closeout game, a guy who has never chased any of these dream-team scenarios, a guy who is a Finals MVP, a guy who is a multi-time All-Star, All-NBA, all everything, global face of the game.”
Williams famous how Antetokounmpo introduced a championship to Milwaukee a mere 4 years in the past.
“To call him an underachiever is just, I think, an asinine comment,” he stated.
“Having the seat that you have, having the career that you’ve had, we gotta frame these conversations, ’cause there’s no way in hell anybody who watches basketball, who knows the level of greatness that comes along with Giannis, would say that he’s an underachiever.”
Smith, in his retort, argued that he had known as Antetokounmpo “one of the greatest players to have ever lived” whereas firing again at Williams.
“I’m entitled to call your take asinine,” Smith stated. “As a matter of reality, it’s a bit worse than that since you’re ill-informed, as a result of clearly you didn’t take heed to what I needed to say. Possibly you had been caught in site visitors, perhaps you had been negotiating one other enterprise deal, perhaps you had been doing one other considered one of your exhibits as a result of you’re a very, very busy and profitable man. However you didn’t take heed to my full take.
“I specifically stated that Giannis was one of the greatest players to have ever lived, and Giannis is phenomenal. Giannis is going to go down as one of the all-time greats. But when you’re that great and you have one championship on your resume, people are not going to look at you the same.”
