J.R. Smith blasts Stephen A. Smith for comments about hoodie, Trayvon Martin

Jordan Heck

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J.R. Smith blasts Stephen A. Smith for comments about hoodie, Trayvon Martin image

Cavaliers guard J.R. Smith went on a Twitter rant Saturday morning against ESPN's Stephen A. Smith.

Smith was responding to comments made by the "First Take" analyst earlier in the week when he criticized the guard for wearing a hoodie on the bench. Smith said the hoodie will remind people of Trayvon Martin, and said NBA players shouldn't be wearing hoodies during a game.

Here's how Smith responded:

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In the last tweet, Smith is referring to "First Take," the show that used to feature Smith and Skip Bayless, who has since moved to Fox. But Smith actually didn't make his comments on the ESPN show. Instead, he made the comments on his radio show.

What did Stephen A. Smith say?

You can listen to Smith's rant below:

Smith was initially discussing Dwyane Wade coming off the bench instead of Smith, and that's when he went into his rant about hoodies.

"In Game 1, when they played against Boston, J.R. Smith was sitting on that bench in the fourth quarter with a hoodie on. I don't why the hell Nike made these damn uniforms that have hoods attatched to it, by the way. You got a lot of those white folks in the audience thinking this is going to be Trayvon Martin being revisited. And I'm not joking about it. The bench is no place for somebody to be wearing hoodies."

UPDATE: After the Cavs' game against the Pelicans on Saturday, J.R. Smith elaborated a bit more on his tweets.

“I mean, that’s ridiculous," he said. "Stephen A. said that me wearing my hoodie on the bench makes white people remember Trayvon Martin. For one, they should remember him. Everybody should remember him. But for two, I’ve always worn a hoodie. I used to wear my hoodie in New York."

J.R. Smith continued by saying that several other players wear hoodies, and couldn't figure out why he was singled out for wearing one.

“To bring race into that and for me, out of all people, why would you bring me into it? I have nothing to do with it. I could see if you want to critique me on my playing, but don’t do that. That’s ridiculous.

"And there’s 450-plus players in the league. Since they put the hoodie [warm-ups] in, you see guys who don’t even play wearing it. So it’s not like it’s a just-me thing. Everybody, well not everybody, but a majority of guys wear hoodies.

“It’s crazy because after our first game when we played Boston, I saw him in the tunnel and he said, ‘Be careful wearing your hoodie because people are going to mistake that for you not wanting to play because you’re not starting or you being frustrated.

“I said, ‘OK, I can see that.’ But then you’re switching it up to say what you said [about Martin], it’s like, what are you talking about? It’s cool. I mean, I expect it. I should expect that at this point.”

Stephen A. Smith responded with some tweets of his own in an attempt to clarify what he meant.

 

Jordan Heck

Jordan Heck Photo

Jordan Heck is a Social Media Producer at Sporting News. Before working here, he was a Digital Content Producer at The Indianapolis Star. He graduated with a degree from Indiana University.