Skip Bayless: Stephen A. Smith has ‘greatest gift of gab in the history of television’
"He is gifted beyond gifted."
"He is gifted beyond gifted."
Bayless still won't give an inch.
"You can't be a very happy person if you hold yourself to a standard of perfection."
"It's weird that our brains work that way, where we attach it to someone we barely know, maybe we've met a few times."
"My mentions were a cesspool."
"I felt like Kobe let in, he let himself be known by me, or at least he tried. And it is now my job to tell the world about him."
"I never, ever envisioned that I was going to live another day in my life without Kim."
"I thought ESPN was absolutely miserable to him after what he had given them for 17 years."
"The media was obsessed with our relationship in New York. It was a very meaty story, and negativity sells, and big names sell."
"When you're in that ESPN world, there is a lot of sort of Stockholm syndrome of, this is the only thing that matters."
"I don't want to say hyperbolic when I say it's the most important conversation I've ever had."
"It should've been a red flag."
"I can tell you from reading the words that were written, there was at least a little bit of misogyny in it."
"The format is you talk on television, and people don't want something new all the time."
"They offered me the world."
"Why do you have to crush people while you criticize them?"
"I’m in the fortunate position of getting us from point A to point B to point C with three guys who have been in every conceivable situation in a basketball game."
"You have gotten so strong. Like, I don't think people listening to this have any earthly idea, the degree of difficulty of what you have done to get to where you are."
"I wasn't a sports reporter; I was a crime reporter."