Adam Lefkoe blasts ‘frustratingly absurd’ discussion of Steph Curry on ‘First Take’

The Steph Curry debates are popping up again, and they’re now leading to cross-network take discussions. The latest round of this came from Draymond Green (who’s still a contributor to TNT Sports’ NBA coverage when he isn’t playing or podcasting) claiming on his podcast past players don’t respect this era of the NBA, Smith using his ESPN platform on First Take to share a critical Steph Curry take from “a Hall of Famer,” and NBA on TNT Tuesdays host Adam Lefkoe calling the physicality argument from the unnamed player “frustratingly absurd” on X:

Smith starts that by saying “I had a Hall of Famer come up to me and said to me, ‘Steph Curry would not have averaged more than 17 points a game.’ Now obviously, I think that person should have been drug-tested, but he said that to me. But then I quieted down, because he wasn’t talking about his skillset.”

Smith then goes on to relay more of the player’s comments on past physicality, and offer his own concurrence with that at least on some level.

“He said ‘In our era, we would’ve hurt him.’ He said ‘We would have hurt him. He would have had to run the picks. He wouldn’t have been protected by the officials.’ …He wasn’t talking about basketball, he was talking about ‘These were the elements that came with the game that we had to endure that these guys don’t even have to think about.’ Now, of course, from a talent perspective, the talent is clearly superior now to what it was. …But the problem is when they were playing, they were judged so harshly, and all of those things were taken into consideration that they’re looking at now, rule changes, hand-checking, the absence of physicality that exists now compared to what it once was.”

In fairness to Smith, he makes it clear in that clip (in those quotes and afterwards) that he thinks there’s a higher level of talent now. But he does seem to generally concur with the unnamed player’s argument that the way physical play was called in the past would have a negative impact on Curry and others known for their outside shooting skill. And Lefkoe doesn’t personally criticize Smith here, but he does make it clear he thinks this violence-based argument the player advanced (which Smith showed at least some level of agreement with) is quite out there.

There have been some significant ESPN/TNT back-and-forths on the NBA over the years, especially between Smith and Inside The NBA‘s Charles Barkley. This doesn’t rise to that level of personal criticism, but it’s still interesting to see a major TNT Sports NBA figure criticize the way the league is being discussed on ESPN. And another notable part of that is that TNT has taken a lot of heat recently for seemingly negative coverage of the current state of the league, which adds to the dimensions of one of their personalities criticizing NBA negativity on ESPN.