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Stephen A. Smith Returns To First Take, And It’s…Very Loud

Wherever Stephen A. Smith goes, yelling follows. When Stephen A. Smith matches vocal cords with Skip Bayless? Lord help you. Today, it so happened that, by complete coincidence, the day after the Miami Heat beat the Chicago Bulls to clinch a spot in the NBA Finals, Smith joined Bayless at ESPN’s First Take debate table for the first time in many moons. It was…Lord help us.

More specifically: it was loud. There was much yelling. Bayless took Dwyane Wade’s side of the argument for the topic of “Which Heat player was most responsible for the team’s late-game rally?” and Stephen A. vouched for LeBron James. So it was loud and predictable.

But mostly loud:

We think Skip might be trolling to get maximum loudness out of Stephen A., whether it be from guffaws or words enunciated with needless strength (or, “eNUNciated with NEEDless STRENGTH,” as Stephen A. himself might say that line). If this truly was Skip’s plan, it worked. It certainly worked for First Take’s purposes: they couldn’t wait to brag to us about how much buzz the show was getting (which, we guess, now includes our fair site – well played).

Also, First Take’s own Jay Crawford and Reischea Canidate remarked how much fun they were having watching/listening to these guys compete for decibel supremacy. Our reaction to debates like the one you see above was more along the lines of “[covers ears] AAAAAAAHHHHHHH MAKE THE LOUD MEN STOP MAKE IT STOP AAAAAAAHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” To each his/her own, though.