Stephen A. Smith was very candid about his feelings on working with Max Kellerman on First Take in a recent interview on The Joe Budden Podcast, and Marcellus Wiley had an idea of why things ultimately didn’t work out between the two.
Stephen A. didn’t mince words when talking about how he needed to take the show in a different direction. Plus the working relationship between Smith and Kellerman had run its course.
“It was totally my fault and the reason it was my fault is because I didn’t like working with him,” he said. “It’s just that damn simple. I didn’t like it. I thought the show was stale. I thought that we had flatlined when it came to the public at large. I didn’t want to go from No. 1 to No. 2. when Skip (Bayless) left. I wasn’t having that. That shit wasn’t gonna happen.”
On his Never Shut Up daily show on Wednesday, Wiley said he thought Stephen A. was often outsmarted by Kellerman when trying to tackle issues bigger than just sports.
“He wanted Max first, because he was white. The show wanted Max to speak for white America,” Wiley said. “That would allow Stephen A. to get to speak for Black America. Now, here’s the problem. Stephen A. realized quickly that he was dealing with a whole different animal (in Kellerman), especially on Black issues, especially on societal issues. Because Max Kellerman is not only a historian, but the dude is a bona fide genius.”
Wiley thought that Max was perhaps too intelligent in some ways for Stephen A., and that Smith recognized it as a weakness in some way and had Max leave the show.
“It’s an insecurity for Stephen A. And that’s what happened,” he said. “This all started from a guy who was so intelligent, it brought back some of those insecurities from Stephen A.”
“Stephen A. felt threatened point plank,” he said. “Ain’t no way around it.”
Stephen A. did admit in that interview that he knew Max was a very smart person, but ultimately if he didn’t like working with him and he wasn’t proud of the product they were putting on the airwaves every day, something needed to change.
“I had mad respect for him from the standpoint of white dude, highly intelligent, Ivy League — educated from Columbia. Smart as a whip. Can talk his ass off,” Smith said. “Can talk about anything. I get all that. But you weren’t an athlete, and you weren’t a journalist. And the absence of the two components left people wondering, ‘Why should we listen to you?’”
“Max & I weren’t working in the end. I wanted to win. So I didn’t want that duo,” Smith wrote in a tweet after the interview. “Doesn’t mean he isn’t smart, talented and that he’s not a good guy. I have nothing against him. I wish him well. Just needed a change. That’s all.”
