{"id":548809,"date":"2026-03-27T17:13:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-27T17:13:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/548809\/"},"modified":"2026-03-27T17:13:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-27T17:13:08","slug":"stephen-a-smith-continues-josh-hart-feud-with-brutal-ny-knicks-reality-check","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/548809\/","title":{"rendered":"Stephen A. Smith Continues Josh Hart Feud With Brutal NY Knicks Reality Check"},"content":{"rendered":"

Stephen A. Smith is not someone you can easily get to. But when New York Knicks<\/a> guard Josh Hart<\/a> called him a \u201cpart-time Knicks fan,\u201d Smith didn\u2019t just fire back, he delivered one of the most personal and powerful responses of his career. And frankly, it was hard to argue with a single word of it.<\/p>\n

The drama kicked off after the Knicks\u2019 blowout 145-113 win over the Washington Wizards<\/a> on March 23. Hart stepped up to defend teammate Mikal Bridges, calling the criticism surrounding him \u201cunfair,\u201d and argued that Bridges was simply doing what the coaching staff asked of him.<\/p>\n

Advertisement<\/p>\n

When a reporter from New York Newsday Sports<\/a> brought up Smith\u2019s earlier comments, in which he had publicly told Hart to \u201csit down and be quiet\u201d on First Take, Hart didn\u2019t hold back. He called Smith a \u201cpart-time Knicks fan\u201d who \u201cbarely knows guys on the team.\u201d<\/p>\n

Stephen A. Smith unleashed on Josh Hart<\/p>\n

Smith made it clear that Hart had severely underestimated him. \u201cYou don\u2019t even know how close I am to the people who cut your checks,\u201d Smith said in his video<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Then\u200b\u200d\u200b\u200c\u200d\u200b\u200d\u200c\u200b\u200d\u200b\u200c\u200d\u200b\u200d\u200c he presented his resume: 20 years as an NBA journalist, covering more than 100 games a year while traveling, hundreds of locker rooms visited, and established relationships with longtime players and coaches, something that many other journalists would only dream of \u200b\u200d\u200b\u200c\u200d\u200b\u200d\u200c\u200b\u200d\u200b\u200c\u200d\u200b\u200d\u200chaving.<\/p>\n

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\u201cI\u2019ve been a Knicks fan since I was three. Josh Hart, that would happen to be 24 years before you were born,\u201d Smith said.<\/p>\n

The ESPN analyst\u200b\u200d\u200b\u200c\u200d\u200b\u200d\u200c\u200b\u200d\u200b\u200c\u200d\u200b\u200d\u200c was careful to make clear that his argument was never aimed at a personal level. He consistently made his point about the cost of getting Bridges, which was seven draft picks, including four unprotected first-rounders.<\/p>\n

\u201cSeven picks, man. Seven,\u201d Smith said, making clear that those assets could have potentially landed a franchise-altering star like Giannis Antetokounmpo<\/a>.<\/p>\n

As we know, earlier this season, when the trade deadline was around, Antetokounmpo name was highly linked to the Knicks. If the Knicks had all those assets in their pocket, there was a high chance that they could have landed Giannis, and it would have just benefited the Knicks.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Stephen A. Smith is not someone you can easily get to. But when New York Knicks guard Josh…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":548810,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[64],"tags":[359,61628,36784,355,361,244485,99,3692,11948],"class_list":{"0":"post-548809","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nba","8":"tag-giannis-antetokounmpo","9":"tag-josh-hart","10":"tag-mikal-bridges","11":"tag-nba","12":"tag-new-york-knicks","13":"tag-new-york-newsday-sports","14":"tag-sports","15":"tag-stephen-a-smith","16":"tag-washington-wizards"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/548809","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=548809"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/548809\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/548810"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=548809"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=548809"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=548809"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}