Stephen A. Smith Wishes He Could ‘Do Over’ His Infamous Kwame Brown ‘Bonafide Scrub’ Rant

Stephen A. Smith has spent decades firing off takes on national television, and as such there have been some occasions when he’s crossed a line. While Smith is never one to fully retract something he’s said, he does recognize there are times where he’s taken things too far and wishes he had the opportunity to go back and take a different approach to certain topics.

Smith joined Paul George and the Podcast P show this week and was asked about any regrets he has in his career, noting he has several. Among them are his beef with Glenn “Big Dog” Robinson, who has said he wants to fight Stephen A., with Smith saying he stands by his reporting on Robinson being the reason Randy Ayers got fired in Philadelphia, but wishes he never let it get to this point. From a national perspective, the moment he wishes he had back on ESPN was his infamous rant about Kwame Brown being a “bonafide scrub” after he was traded to Memphis as part of the Pau Gasol trade.

Again, as Smith told George and company, he doesn’t think he said anything that wasn’t correct, but he does wish he hadn’t been quite as theatrical about it to the point that it became a meme — with Kwame, like Glenn Robinson, hating Stephen A. to this day, which Smith has come to accept.

I do love that even though Stephen A. seems to genuinely wish he’d approached these topics differently he can’t help but note while semi-apologizing for them that he was correct at the time, it was just his delivery that was a bit uncouth. I don’t know if Robinson or Brown will be willing to accept Stephen A.’s remorsefulness here, but it is nice to see Stephen A. recognize when he’s gone a bit too far.

[via Wave Sports & Entertainment]