{"id":499704,"date":"2026-06-05T07:40:31","date_gmt":"2026-06-05T05:40:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/?p=499704"},"modified":"2026-06-05T07:40:31","modified_gmt":"2026-06-05T05:40:31","slug":"stephen-a-smith-im-too-popular-to-sit-in-the-stands-with-fans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/stephen-a-smith-im-too-popular-to-sit-in-the-stands-with-fans\/","title":{"rendered":"Stephen A. Smith: \u201cI\u2019m too popular to sit in the stands with fans\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"isSelectedEnd\"><strong>Stephen A. Smith<\/strong> sparked discussion with his latest comments about being around fans during NBA games.<\/p>\n<p class=\"isSelectedEnd\">The <strong>ESPN<\/strong> personality explained that he prefers standing in the tunnel at the arena: \u201cI was standing in the tunnel because that\u2019s what I like to do.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He then added the line that quickly drew attention: \u201cObviously, you know I\u2019m a popular dude, so it\u2019s difficult to sit in the stands.\u201d The comment immediately became a talking point on social media.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">Stephen A. Smith says he\u2019s too popular to sit in the stands with fans<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI was standing in the tunnel because that\u2019s what I like to do\u2026 Obviously, you know I\u2019m a popular dude, so it\u2019s difficult to sit in the stands.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>(h\/t <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/TheNBABase?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">@TheNBABase<\/a> ) <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/eqfeIp59cq\">pic.twitter.com\/eqfeIp59cq<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 NBACentral (@TheDunkCentral) <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/TheDunkCentral\/status\/2062673215671922823?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">June 4, 2026<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.x.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The ESPN personality explained why he prefers standing in the tunnel during NBA games<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":146,"featured_media":499703,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_spbk_hide_featured":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[399],"tags":[],"rumors":[],"typology":[187],"posizionamento":[],"class_list":["post-499704","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nba","typology-video"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2026\/06\/Screenshot-2026-06-05-alle-07.39.10.png","digistream_id":0,"digistream":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/499704","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/146"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=499704"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/499704\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/499703"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=499704"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=499704"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=499704"},{"taxonomy":"rumors","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rumors?post=499704"},{"taxonomy":"typology","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/typology?post=499704"},{"taxonomy":"posizionamento","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posizionamento?post=499704"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}