Stephen A. Smith issued an apology Thursday afternoon for his comments earlier in the day that criticized Anthony Davis and the head injury that caused him to exit Game 5 early.
“Blow back is Blow back,” Smith wrote on Twitter. “Comes with the territory, peeps. I was in no way minimizing the seriousness of a concussion. I was questioning whether Anthony Davis really had one, considering the play I saw & other hits I’ve seen him absorb. But, bottom line, it was wrong for me to do. Period! My bad.”
During “First Take” on ESPN, Smith joked about Davis’ possible concussion — alongside former basketball player Jay Williams, reporter Brian Windhorst and host Molly Qerim — and questioned whether something like that could actually happen in an NBA game.
Smith said that he was laughing because he thought the “NFL season was over,” and he added that there was nothing from the play that made him think about a possible concussion.
“I mean, dammit, was he running over the middle and got hit by Ronnie Lott or something?” Smith asked, as the camera eventually cut to a laughing Williams. “Did I miss something? Did I miss it? Is Ray Lewis in a Los Angeles Lakers uniform? I mean, did he get hit by Aaron Donald? Did I miss something? Did I miss something?”
Smith also appeared to poke fun at Davis needing a wheelchair to get to the locker room, which was something that caused Shaquille O’Neal and Charles Barkley to start laughing on TNT’s “Inside the NBA” — which frustrated Ernie Johnson and prompted the host to say, “Man guys, come on now.”
“I can assure you Shaq is still laughing,” Smith said. “I can assure you Barkley … Because we can’t believe it. You just can’t believe it. You can’t make this up.”
At one point during Smith’s comments about Davis, Qerim interrupted him and asked them to “let me be the adult in the room,” and she noted that those injuries are serious and can have “life-altering effects” on someone.
“No one is saying a concussion isn’t serious,” Smith responded. “We’re saying we found it hard to believe a concussion actually happened on that play that we were watching.”
Davis was hit in the head by Kevon Looney’s arm as the pair fought for positioning under the basket, which prompted him to exit for the locker room in the fourth quarter.
There was doubt about his status for the rest of the series — with the Lakers leading the Warriors, 3-2, as the series shifts back to Crypto.com Arena — in Games 6 and 7, but Lakers coach Darvin Ham told reporters Thursday that Davis is not in concussion protocol and is probable for Friday’s Game 6.