Stephen “Race” Smith Says Dallas “Must” Draft Cooper Flagg Because He’s White

Stephen “Race” Smith could be walking through a beautiful, manicured field with acres of freshly cut green grass and just one pile of dog doo in it and he would go out of his way to step in it.

Look, none of us are naïve. Smith works for ESPN, which seemingly insists that you must be racist to work there. On that front, Smith never misses an opportunity to not disappoint. It’s obvious that some of the things that he spews forth are so that he can remain controversial, but when he uses race for that reason, it drives wedges where no wedges need to be.

Last week, the Dallas Mavericks of the NBA ended up with the overall number one pick in the upcoming draft. Unlike the NFL, where the team with the worst record from the previous year gets the first pick, the NBA uses a bizarre ping pong ball system, and even with less than a 2 percent chance to land the pick, Dallas got the lucky ball.

This year, the consensus number one pick is expected to be Cooper Flagg, an 18-year-old freshman forward from Duke. Flagg had a great season, averaging 19.2 points, 7.5 rebounds, 4.2 assists, 1.4 steals, and 1.4 blocks per game. He also earned the Wooden Award as the top college basketball player.

Dallas’s unexpected windfall couldn’t have arrived at a better time. During the past season, their General Manager, Nico Harrison, made himself public enemy number one by trading away Luka Doncic, a player many consider the best offensive player in the league.

Flagg is expected to become a cornerstone that the Mavericks can build around. His arrival will ease the sting of losing Doncic in what many consider to be one of the worst trades in NBA history.

If you’re a Maverick fan, this really is a stroke of unbelievable luck. If Flagg turns out to be the player everyone expects him to be, losing Doncic would be a Godsend.

However, Smith thinks that the Mavericks need to draft Flagg not just because of his athletic ability but also because he is White. According to Smith:

“When you’ve got somebody with that kind of potential and they’re white and you are in America, you keep that dude. Texas is different, and in Dallas, Texas, if you got an opportunity to get Cooper Flagg, you take Cooper Flagg – especially when you just let go of Luka Dončić.”

Smith correctly argued that being a white American superstar in the NBA, a league with few white American stars, makes Flagg highly marketable and likely to draw comparisons to Larry Bird. However, emphasizing that Dallas can’t pass on him because he is White is an insult to Flagg’s abilities as a player.

Dallas shouldn’t pass on Flagg because he is the best player in the draft, and that has nothing to do with his skin color. Whether he meant it that way or not, Smith’s comments suggest otherwise and imply that drafting him is based on the marketing advantages because he is white, which suggests privilege.

Jason Whitlock, who hosts Fearless with Jason Whitlock on Blaze Media, pointed out the flaw in ESPN’s tactics.

“I don’t understand why ESPN allows this, other than obviously they’re in the racial division business like a lot of the rest of the media.”

Jay Skapinac, host of the “Skap Attack,” added:

“There is, for whatever reason, this undeniable urge or push for ESPN to utilize this race-baiting tactics.”

“Sports to me are the ultimate merit-based entity, really. The best should be the ones playing; the best should be the ones picked; the best should be the ones dictating the merchandising dollars, and so forth, for five years, the best player in the NBA has been Nikola Jokić by a wide margin.” 

Skapinac’s point is that Jokic, who is Serbian and White, is overshadowed by other black players in merchandising dollars despite being considered the best overall player.

When Caitlin Clark, who is White, entered the WNBA last year, she was met with a lot of underlying racial tension. Clark entered under a cloud of a perfect storm. Not only is she White in a predominantly black league, but she is also a straight heterosexual in a league where many are not. One of her biggest college rivals, Angel Reece, who is black, entered simultaneously on another team and was immediately more universally accepted than Clark.

Clark, like Flagg, soon will be, was the number one overall pick. She was not chosen because she was White in a predominantly black league, and she was not taken because of the marketing bonanza she was destined to create. She was taken because she was the best, period.

Flagg will not come in and dominate the NBA like Clark did in the WNBA. He’s young, and the NBA is a totally different animal. That said, he is the best player coming out of this year’s college crop, and Dallas should take him for that reason.

There’s a rumor that Smith’s position will become more prominent at ESPN. His most recent contract raised his annual salary from $12 million to $20 million. That’s a lot of money for someone who makes his living making racist and other controversial observations. Too bad negative insinuations that can hurt other people’s careers can falsely inflate the career of their antagonist. It’s also why I haven’t watched ESPN for over a decade.