NBA legend Charles Barkley just offered a scathing critique about how overexposed Stephen A. Smith is getting. Smith fired back, calling Barkley a “flaming hypocrite.”
And each says he considers the other a friend?
Barkley, who is joining ESPN with “Inside the NBA” in 2025-26, started it by saying Stephen A. being everywhere is an idea that goes nowhere.
Barkley says Smith ‘needs to stop’
“You know, Stephen A.’s a friend of mine but he needs to stop right now,” Barkley said on OutKick’s “Don’t @ Me with Dan Dakich” podcast. “Less is more … the more you do, the less people take you serious.”
We can debate whether Smith is being taken seriously, even without appearing on more shows. His name has been floated concerning a run for the White House in 2028, but who really thinks he will walk away from the $100 million, five-year deal he has with the sports network to take on the Oval Office? Barkley said he would not vote for him.
“You can talk about people not taking me seriously all you want to, we’ll see, because I’m a serious brother,” Smith said. “You know who the hell I am.”
How can anybody not know? If Smith seems omnipresent, it’s only because he’s on “First Take,” “NBA Countdown,” does interviews, late-night slots and podcasts. Barkley says that’s too much and added that he follows his own advice, limiting himself to two commercials a year because “people get sick of you.”
Smith says why don’t you tell Shaq that?
Smith laughed that off in a stinging retort on his “The Stephen A. Smith Show”: “That’s my guy, but that doesn’t mean I always agree with him. And it doesn’t mean I’m devoid of the right to call him a flaming hypocrite when it’s called upon. Do y’all know how many commercials Charles Barkley does a year? He’ll tell us two. Have you seen Charles Barkley in two commercials? Are you kidding me? Oh, by the way, the cat that you work with at least twice a week during the NBA season is Shaquille O’Neal. Can we count the amount of endorsements he has? How often he’s seen everywhere? What new product he’s pitching? Did you say that about him? No, you didn’t. But when it comes to me, I need to be ‘careful.’ ”
It may be too late to be careful, according to Barkley.
“I was in the studio last night and I saw he was going to be on ‘Law & Order’ tonight,” Barkley said. “I mean he is already on ‘General Hospital,’ he’s already on ‘General Hospital,’ now he is going to be on ‘Law & Order’ tonight, and I was just laughing. I was like, ‘Yo man, you are starting to be too much right now.’
“Like, you are going to be on CNN, you are going to be on ‘Fox & Friends,’ now you on ‘General Hospital,’ now you on ‘Law & Order,’ I’m like, ‘Yo man, knock it off. Stop being on every TV show’ because at some point people are going to get sick of you, and you are going to be like, ‘Yeah I probably did too much.’ But once you do too much, it’s too late and people don’t take you serious, and I think he’s got to be careful in that aspect.”
Smith acknowledged that he is “making people very uncomfortable and I don’t give a s–t.”
