Stephen A. Smith said he does not believe the Los Angeles Lakers will win an NBA championship this season, telling listeners he has never seen a title team whose top three players were all white.
Stephen A. Smith says the Lakers won’t win a championship because their top three players are white
“I've never seen an NBA team with its top three players being white deliver a championship. It's never happened, and I'm here to tell you, I don't think it's gonna happen this… pic.twitter.com/I04USCLWEV
— NBABase (@TheNBABase) November 11, 2026
The remarks came during a caller segment on The Stephen A. Smith Show, with a listener identified on screen as Andrew in Florida. “I’ve never seen an NBA team with its top three players being white deliver a championship. It’s never happened, and I’m here to tell you, I don’t think it’s gonna happen this year,” Smith said. A clip of the exchange circulated Tuesday.
He later said that, in his lifetime, there has not been a championship team “led with its top three players being white” in an era with “an abundance of brothers playing basketball,” and that “it ain’t going to happen.” Smith said he was “just talking about logistics” and “the actual facts,” citing past title teams he argued were not led by a white top three. Those included Celtics groups with Larry Bird and Kevin McHale that, he said, still had Dennis Johnson, as well as teams he tied to Elgin Baylor, Wilt Chamberlain, Isiah Thomas, Tim Duncan, Shaquille O’Neal, Kobe Bryant and LeBron James. “I think that’s controversial in some people’s eyes. It ain’t controversial in mine,” he said. “I’m just telling you how it is.”
The caller said he agreed and that he “could care less about what race anybody is,” adding, “I’m a white guy calling about the white team.” Smith said the Lakers “got a chance” but that he did not think it would “materialize into a championship.” He mentioned injuries to the Oklahoma City Thunder, a worn-down Denver Nuggets team still led by Nikola Jokic and Jamal Murray, and the Minnesota Timberwolves as a team to be reckoned with, noting that Luka Doncic has beaten Minnesota in the postseason. He also said a championship for Doncic would be “huge” for the league, Los Angeles and the 2028 Olympics, which are scheduled for L.A., before repeating that he could not see it happening for “a team with its top three players being white dudes.”
The Lakers have been built around Doncic and Austin Reaves, who agreed last summer to a $185 million, four-year deal, after LeBron James left the franchise. Their core has also included center Walker Kessler. That makeup has been a running topic since the offseason, including in September, when coach JJ Redick was asked whether he planned to start an all-white lineup and said two open starting spots “will not be two white guys.” The three spots he said he was confident in were widely understood to be Doncic, Reaves and Kessler. Smith’s comments were his opinion about that group’s championship chances, not a formal prediction from the team.
