Sportswriter serves Stephen A Smith fans with reminder of his lack of journalistic legitimacy: "The sports version of Rachel Maddow"

Veteran analyst Stephen A Smith has been on the receiving end of criticism. The ESPN talent made headlines last week when he claimed an anonymous source called Jaylen Brown an unmarketable player due to his personality.

Many people have had something to say about this and today, sports writer Jason Page took to Twitter to call out Stephen A Smith, saying he's the 'Rachel Maddow of sports journalism.'

"Stephen A. Smith is sports version of a Rachel Maddow or Sean Hannity. He's a talk-show host. While Stephen A. could claim he is a journalist all he wants and whenever it suits him, those journalist days are behind him. They slipped into the rear-view mirror the moment he decided to host a program called 'First Take.'"

Page further criticized ESPN and Smith, commenting on the way the channel does TV right now.

"So this is what Stephen A Smith has been relegated to and what ESPN is more than willing to endorse, quietly or otherwise. It's become a place where somebody can host an opinions-based show for two hours daily and slander (through unnamed sources) anybody they want and then behind a completely fabricated claim of journalism to protect themselves from the incoming firew that is sure to come after making the kind of comments Smith made about Jaylen Brown."

He added that Smith does have sources, but other people like Maddow and Sean Hannity do too, and that alone doesn't make somebody a journalist.

"But we have to stop pretending Stephen A Smith is anything other than what we all bare witness to each and every day. He's a guy with an opinion. Does he have friends and sources? It should be noted they are sometimes one in the same. Of course he does.

"But Sean Hannity has sources. We learned that during the Trump years. Lawrence O'Donnell or Rachel Maddow have sources too. But the moment you see fit to use those sources as part of an attempt to simply entertain, antagonize or jin up controversy, you're NOT a journalist. You're just noise operating beneath the facade of journalism."

Isiah Thomas, Jaylen Brown called out Stephen A Smith over his comments on Sunday

These remarks made the rounds in the NBA world, and several people took exception to them. Isiah Thomas first condemned Smith's words, saying he wouldn't allow any slander for the Celtics player.

Moreover, Brown asked Smith to reveal the source behind these comments, but the analyst refused to do so.

Stephen A. Smith isn't a stranger to controversy, and he has said that some of his work has put him in a complex position with NBA stars like Allen Iverson and Kyrie Irving. Brown has joined that list now and he's not letting this slip that easily.