Stephen A. Smith repeated the fake Ballsack Sports report on a Kyrie Irving-James Harden fight that previously fooled him last month

We’ve seen a lot of sports media figures and outlets fall for fake quotes and descriptions from “Ballsack Sports” and people citing them, including Fox organizations a couple of times and ESPN personalities a whole lot of times. One of those ESPN personalities was Stephen A. Smith, who was fooled by a couple of Ballsack “reports” in early March, one on LeBron James texting Tom Brady to convince him to unretire, and one on Kyrie Irving and James Harden getting into a physical fight at practice (that report also fooled ESPN’s Kendrick Perkins at that time). And now, Smith is again repeating that “report.”

On First Take Monday, Smith brought up that “report” again. Specifically, he brought up the element of it where Irving called Harden “washed.” This did not happen: it was made up by the Ballsack Sports account, run by a 24-year-old named Matt in Ohio who told AA’s Sean Keeley “I want to be very transparent that we are not legitimate.” Here’s how that account relayed Smith’s comments Monday:

https://twitter.com/ballsacksports/status/1511020866309603339

This is even sillier than the first time Smith fell for this, as he says “”Kyrie looked him in the face, according to reports, and told him ‘You washed up.'” That is a totally fake quote made up by Matt for Ballsack Sports. The first time, Smith said “So all of this noise that you hear about what may have transpired in practice between the two, I dismissed it”; there was an argument that he was only referencing an Athletic story about drama between the two (which did happen, but did not include a fight, “washed,” or practice; it referenced a “weird vibe” over Irving burning sage at his locker) rather than the Ballsack “quote” (although the latter seems more reasonable considering Smith’s mention of “practice”). This time, Smith is very specifically referencing a Ballsack “quote” that didn’t happen.

Apparently, looking into the provenance of “reports” is not part of Smith’s duties under his $12 million contract. And yes, he’s far from the only person fooled by Ballsack Sports (or by other fake quotes), but this one is particularly funny for using a specific quote that should have raised questions (it’s not that believable that Irving really would have said that to Harden in practice), and for doing so nearly a month after that fake quote was first published. But, as Smith reminded the world last month, he doesn’t worry about what he says on air because “my contract’s guaranteed.” So maybe we’ll see him spread some more Ballsack Sports stories in the weeks ahead.

[Ballsack Sports on Twitter]