Stephen A. Smith Blasts Kyrie Irving, Dwight Howard for Not Wanting to Play (VIDEO)

Kyrie Irving and Dwight Howard both made headlines this weekend for being against the NBA season restart in Orlando that is set for July 30. Irving and Howard are not alone in their support of canceling the rest of the NBA season, but have been the two biggest names to be identified publicly. Unsurprisingly, this caught the attention of one Stephen A. Smith who called Kyrie and Howard “foolish” on this morning’s ‘Get Up’ on ESPN:

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Certain things just don’t make any damn sense. This is one of those things…..what Kyrie and D-Howard are saying. And don’t y’all worry. I’m back on @FirstTake TODAY! Enough of folks getting away with this nonsense. Here I come! pic.twitter.com/ttR5OJ9eO7

— Stephen A Smith (@stephenasmith) June 15, 2020

“That’s not a reason not to show up to work. The fact that racial oppression has existed, it’s going to exist after this summer, it’s going to exist next year, it’s going to exist the year after, a year from now, ten years from now, 20 years from now. Anybody in our society that thinks this thing is going to be completely eradicated is fooling themselves. You’re always going to have to deal with these things, so that is not an excuse not to show up to work to do your job. You can fight the fight while still showing up to work. And that’s why I think Kyrie Irving and Dwight Howard are a bit ill-informed.”

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Stephen A. Smith makes some good points here and doesn’t attempt to masquerade to the public as he tends to do. We don’t have full transparency on why players such as Kyrie and Dwight Howard don’t want the NBA to return, but the reports have been that they believe it will take away from the greater cause (i.e. there are more important things going on in the world in terms of racial injustice than basketball).

There are certainly more important things going on then NBA basketball, but I just don’t understand how being able to utilize a public forum to bring attention to the cause takes away from it. My guess is the NBA restart will continue without Kyrie Irving (who is injured anyways) and Dwight Howard if need be.

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