The day after all the buzz over controversial tweets by Steph Curry's wife, Ayesha, it was time for the pundits to inevitably weigh in. And right off the bat, ESPN pundit Stephen A. Smith had some choice words of advice for the reigning MVP's spouse on how an NBA wife should behave.
"She stepped out of line. She stepped out of pocket," Smith said on ESPN's First Take, in reference to Curry's since-deleted tweet after Game 6 of the NBA Finals between the Golden State Warriors and Cleveland Cavaliers.
"I've lost all respect. Sorry this is absolutely rigged for money...or ratings (I'm) not sure which. I won't be silent. Just saw it live sry," Curry posted in a tweet that was deleted minutes later.
She later tweeted that her comments were in the heat of the moment and followed up with, "Police racial profiled my father and told him to remove credentials and tried to arrest him. It's been a long night for me. I apologize."
Not surprisingly, this was a hot topic on ESPN's First Take talk show, where Smith and fellow sports reporter Skip Bayless debate sports topics of the day.
"I'm trying to sound as appropriate as I possibly can. You are the wife of Steph Curry. What you do is a reflection on him. What you do is a reflection on the organization he works for. You have to be mindful of that. You can't get caught up in your own individual emotions and having this zest to speak out to the point where it compromises your husband," Smith said.
Some would argue Smith is toeing a fine line -- others might say he clearly crossed it -- by attempting to tell Curry what her proper place is as an NBA wife. And apparently it's a place where her "individual emotions" and "zest to speak out" don't exist.
Local
Smith went on to make comparison's to LeBron James' wife and offered some of the finer points of how to be a well-behaved NBA wife of a superstar.
"If that was Savannah, LeBron's wife, if that were Gloria, LeBron's mother, what would we be saying?" Smith pondered. "As beautiful as everyone wants to say Ayesha Curry is, and she is, Savannah is something special. I’m here to tell you something right now. Ain’t a man alive, particularly a black man, that’s going to look at LeBron James’s wife and not say that that woman ain’t gorgeous. She's wonderful inside and out. She sits there. She doesn't bring any attention to herself. She never tweets and goes out there and calls out the league and stuff like that, and nobody, nobody, is more scrutinized than her husband. But yet she thinks about how she represents him and as a result she doesn't do that."
Curry shot back with a tweet of her own to Smith, saying, "Why are you putting two women against each other like that? You're the one that's out of pocket."
It's worth nothing that Smith isn't immune to making controversial remarks, particularly when it comes to women. Two years ago he was suspended by ESPN for comments he made on air related to the Ray Rice case, in which he seemed to imply that women bear some responsibility for provoking domestic violence.
Last year Smith also had to apologize for sexist comments involving the women's German soccer team during the World Cup. Reacting to highlights of a free kick goal against the German team, Smith said, "They might not have wanted to mess their hair up."
