Ahmad Austin Jr.May 20th, 2026, 2:47 pm

Fox Sports pundit Nick Wright went off on Stephen A. Smith for his ongoing war of words with Boston Celtics star Jaylen Brown.

The feud between the two began when Smith called out Brown for his livestreams. The 29-year-old regularly streamed throughout the season, but it got much more attention when the Celtics were eliminated from the playoffs, and he went live to complain about the refs.

Smith urged Brown to stop streaming and argued it was a bad look. In response, Brown said he’d stop streaming if Smith went off the air for good. The two have repeatedly gone back and forth on their respective platforms, culminating in Smith making veiled threats against Brown on a recent episode of First Take.

On his podcast What’s Wright?, Wright accused Smith of talking to players as if he were a “mob boss” and explained why, in his view, the feud was detrimental to sports media as a whole. He said:

In my experience, the audience, even if they think Jaylen Brown’s Twitch streams are absurd — which I think most people do — even if they think that Jaylen Brown has handled his off season poorly the way I think many people do, are going to see this and be like, “Wait, what are you saying, bro? Are you telling this superstar athlete to stay in his lane? Are you a late-50s, early 60-year-old man getting in a war of words with a 29-year-old? Is that what’s happening?” And it makes all of us look bad, man. And also, here’s the other thing: you’re the only guy who does it.

As Wright mentioned, Smith’s situation with Brown was far from his spat with a player. The First Take executive producer has previously attacked LeBron James, Kevin Durant, and Kyrie Irving.

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