The internet was in a tizzy Tuesday night when former NBA player Josh Smith claimed that LeBron James's game wouldn't be as successful in his era of basketball. If something about that sentence seems off to you, nice work: You're sharper than Gary Sheffield's least talented son.
Did you remember that Josh Smith's NBA career began in 2004, a season after LeBron James entered the league? Did you recall that Smith is a year younger than the current Lakers player, or that they definitely played in a bunch of games against each other? If you weren't tipped off by any of that, looking at the tweet carefully might have done it:
Credit to Ballsack Sports, because this looks just like any other useless quote card you'd see from an actual media outlet. The only way you'd know it was fake would be by actually reading it. Twitter itself fell for it, as it briefly added the Ballsack Sports tweet as the reason why "Josh Smith" was trending. But as far as I can tell, Gary Sheffield Jr. of Outkick the Coverage was the only person gullible enough to write an entire article that took the quote as real. A fuckup on the site owned by notorious pud Clay Travis wouldn't usually be notable, but because Outkick's founder made a deal with Fox News last year, the article was republished a couple of hours later for a much larger audience. How many cranks annoyed their children by dropping this shit in the family group chat?
"I’ve covered some asinine quotes in my two years at Outkick, however this statement from former NBA player Josh Smith blew me away," Sheffield Jr. wrote at the start of his article. I bet it did.
What's baffling is that Sheffield Jr. knew this imaginary version of Josh Smith was wrong, and it still didn't raise any red flags for him. He included the Ballsack Sports tweet in his article—it says "Ballsack Sports," right there!—and reminded Imaginary Josh Smith that he played in the same era as LeBron.
It’s called jealousy. Want me to prove it? That early 2000s NBA Smith alludes to that "didn’t have as much space as today’s game" is largely because of players, like Josh Smith, lacking skill. The reason we see three-point shooting and "spacing" like we do in the present is because NBA GMs demand it to accommodate their star talent. Spacing, objectively speaking, helps star players avoid double and triple teams to more easily impact the game. That’s strategy, not a "soft league."
And let’s not forget Josh Smith just said "back then", that implies he played in an era prior to LeBron James. That’d be false. Smith was drafted in 2004 — otherwise known as the year AFTER LeBron James. Perhaps he’s just upset James worked at his game and continues to dominate in year 18 while Smith plays in Japan or whatever the hell he does with his time these days.
You really showed him, Gary.
Get a grip, Josh. LeBron James dominates because he’s better and worked harder than you ever could. And let’s just say LeBron was forced to travel back into the 90’s when physical play was more prevalent, today’s king would be forced to adjust. What I’m wondering now is what’s stopping Josh Smith from re-entering into today’s league where scoring comes easier?
We’ll wait.
Both Fox News and Outkick deleted the article late last night. At the same time, Sheffield Jr. got defiant about his error, then ate shit on Twitter. Here's a screencapped version. Everybody makes mistakes. Not everybody makes mistakes that involve something called Ballsack Sports.
