Mark Berman: Kenny Smith (@Kenny Smith) thoughts on the late Jerry Sloan: “The one thing is, we didn’t feel like we were ever playing against @Utah Jazz. We thought we were playing against Jerry Sloan teams, which is a difference. It was a unique style that was so different from every…” pic.twitter.com/NdsVnTZsSV
Kenny Smith Rumors
When he did, giving the Rockets a 103-100 lead in the closing seconds of Game 7 in Phoenix, he marked the occasion by pressing three fingers to his lips and blowing a kiss goodbye to the Suns’ bench and particularly to reserve center Joe Kleine. “I saw the shot and it was a Hollywood movie, just hanging in the air,” former Rockets star Kenny Smith said of the moment long before he became one of the faces of TNT’s “Inside the NBA.” “I was just waiting and waiting and waiting. And it went in.”
“I think overall leadership is about having a direct derivative and I think he’s had a direct derivative from the start,” Smith said. “He understands the culture that we’re in. He understands the world that we live in from human rights to human pandemics. He’s always been ahead of the curve. We trust what he says because it’s always clear.” As for Kenny’s co-worker Charles Barkley — who’s currently self-quarantined over coronavirus fears — Smith says “he’s fine right now.”
How Kenny Smith became more interested in a front office position was through one of the most shrewd and respected executives in the modern NBA, Toronto Raptors president Masai Ujiri. “He called me one day,” Smith said Thursday in Chicago at the House Of Blues, “and I didn’t know him,”
It was last season during Toronto’s championship run, Smith said, that Ujiri hit him up with a fascinating proposal. “He was like ‘hey man, do you mind if I mentor you’” Smith said, “because I think you’d be good at this.’”
Whether or not the 54-year-old Smith ever ends up leaving Inside The NBA for a managerial role, he clearly has the desire for it. And though he didn’t take up the offer to be mentored, at least this time, that’s what made last season’s unprompted phone call from Ujiri so shocking to him. “I always had the aspiration,” Smith said, “but to have a guy like that call you out of the blue, not even knowing what my aspirations were? That was intriguing.”
