ESPN’s Stephen A. Smith is standing by his offseason claim that the Los Angeles Lakers won’t win an NBA championship with three white players leading the way, even with Luka Dončić, Austin Reaves, and Walker Kessler steering the team to a blistering 10-2 start.

Smith revisited the subject on his podcast this week with the Lakers sitting first in the NBA. Fans strongly pushed back, insisting race has no bearing on whether a team wins a title, with some pointing to the Lakers’ defense as the bigger concern.

NBA Fans Reject Race As Factor in Stephen A. Smith’s Lakers Forecast

Smith first raised the point over the offseason, after ESPN’s Shams Charania reported that LeBron James was leaving the Lakers following eight seasons in LA.

“Where the hell the Los Angeles Lakers think they’re going with a bunch of white dudes? Your three top players are white dudes? Really? This ain’t golf!” Smith said at the time, drawing fierce backlash.

12 games into the season, he hasn’t budged. Fielding a call from a fan who defended the Lakers on Tuesday’s episode of “The Stephen A. Smith Show,” he heaped praise on Dončić, who is averaging a league-leading and career-high 39.3 points per game through 10 appearances.

The compliments came with a familiar caveat.

“I do not think they’re getting past the second round. I’d be shocked if they did. I am on the record being controversial because 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 going to happen this year,” Smith doubled down.

The 59-year-old made his case by running through a string of championship teams, from Bill Russell’s Boston Celtics to the Golden State Warriors’ “Splash Brothers” era, but fans weren’t buying the premise.

“Thought this was about basketball, clearly it’s not,” one fan wrote.

Another took aim at the logic itself, questioning, “New NBA championship metric, skin colour?”

On the floor, the Lakers have won six straight games and boast the NBA’s top offensive rating (121.5). Reaves is averaging 25.3 ppg as a second option, and Kessler is anchoring the paint with 14.9 points, 10.8 rebounds, and 2.3 blocks a night.

Against that backdrop, another fan saw no reason to entertain Smith’s take at all:

“This is the least important part about the Lakers this year. Spouting absolute nonsense because he has nothing of substance to say.”

Smith’s return to the topic wore thin for others.

“I know it’s SAS but … does he have anything else to say?” one X user asked.

Another was blunter, declaring, “Stephen A. is a HATER.”

“Only Stephen A. Smith could make America root for this,” a Lakers fan quipped, citing LA’s 4% title odds.

Not every critic of the take is sold on the Lakers, though. One fan agreed they will come up short but blamed the other end of the floor rather than race:

“The team being white isn’t the reason they won’t win. It’s that horrific defense that’s going to do that.”

Smith voiced a version of that concern himself shortly before the season.

“I don’t think Luka Dončić with Austin Reaves is a backcourt that’s going to scare anybody defensively,” Smith told ESPN Los Angeles.

In that same conversation, Smith pegged the Western Conference semifinals as the Lakers’ ceiling, and their torrid opening stretch hasn’t changed that forecast.