Stephen A. Smith knows way more about basketball than most other people. You can debate that all you want based on what you’ve seen him say on ESPN over the years—he's definitely said plenty of stupid things—but the guy has spent most of his professional life covering the sport, so we think it’s safe to say he knows what he’s talking about when it comes to the game.
Unfortunately, Stephen A. hasn’t done himself any favors in recent years when it’s come to making predictions about NBA championships. In fact, he’s an imperfect 0-for-6 as far as picking NBA champions on ESPN’s First Take. Since 2011, Stephen A. has incorrectly predicted that the Heat (2011), Thunder (2012), Spurs (2013), Heat (2014), Cavaliers (2015), and Warriors (2016) would win the NBA Finals. As someone on Reddit pointed out on Monday, all six of those teams have lost.
In the clip above, which was created by the aptly-titled YouTube user Are You Mad Bruh?, you can watch Stephen A. be wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, and wrong again. You can also watch him give really passionate reasons for picking the teams that he did and then laugh about them while you think about just how wrong he was.
We’re not going to be too hard on Stephen A. here. If we looked back at the tape, we’re sure he has been right about something over the last six years. He just hasn't been right when he has made predictions about the one sport he’s supposed to know the most about.