Stephen A. Smith Gets Conned By Fake News and Criticizes Brittney Griner

If a phony tweet or article can mislead top media figures like Stephen A. Smith, what hope do the rest of us have?

Stephen A. appeared as a guest on the Valuetainment podcast with Patrick Bet-David yesterday. They had an extensive discussion about an Instagram post concerning WNBA player Brittney Griner that was so blatantly fake it’s hard to believe they haven’t reconsidered their careers in broadcasting.

Regrettably, neither of them seems troubled by their mistake. Here’s the specific post in question:

“Respectfully, Brittney Griner was in a Russian prison.”

“You would think,” “that somebody who is now free, back in America, on home soil, would not have too much to complain about. Especially something like this. Fans in every sport, she described the fans. It doesn’t matter what sport you pick, that’s how fans act, in every arena.”

 “Clearly she’s not remembering who they let out to get her back. The ‘Merchant of Death,’ an arms dealer, who wanted to kill American citizens, according to the reports. You would think that you would be smiling, you would be ecstatic, you would be happy, and something like this wouldn’t faze you at all. The fact that it does, is disturbing. I’ll leave it at that.”

Should Stephen A. Smith be conned this easily?

To start, this was shared by an account named The Sports Memery, which should have been sufficient for both individuals to pause and reassess the situation. Stephen A. has been misled multiple times by the fake news account NBA Centel, which is somewhat forgivable given how similar its name is to the legitimate NBA Central account.

Even setting aside the username of the account that shared it, how could SAS and PBD overlook the fact that the quote itself was clearly fabricated? Stephen A. took the bait completely, adopting his exaggerated serious tone, lowering his voice to say:

At this point, I’m starting to wonder if the joke is on me and this is all a deepfake because it’s hard to comprehend how someone could be so confidently incorrect.

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