The Blue Check Double Standard on Ben Simmons and Simone Biles

BUCK: Here first is ESPN’s Stephen A. Smith talking about the Brooklyn Nets guard — let’s play this one, 20.

Ben Simmons and Kyrie Irving! pic.twitter.com/oFf4V1RvY8

— Stephen A Smith (@stephenasmith) April 25, 2022

BUCK: Clay, what did he do? I don’t know what he did.

CLAY: He didn’t play, Buck. He didn’t play. He’s been sitting out for a long time now. But what is fascinating about this… You just heard Stephen A. Smith — who’s the highest-paid person in the opinion business for ESPN — absolutely going off on Ben Simmons. He’s a Brooklyn Nets player, was supposed to play in Game 4. The Nets just got swept by the Boston Celtics.

Didn’t play and got destroyed. What I think is so fascinating about this is, Ben Simmons destroyed for not playing. Naomi Osaka and Simone Biles, when they decided not to perform, not to play their sport, it was heroic that they were choosing not to play, that they were putting their health first. And at the time, you talked about… (laughing) You talked about Simone Biles and just got crushed for it in media.

I talked about it and people are used to, I think, me talking about it, but my position on it was we need to treat male and female athletes the same, and so if a woman decides that she can’t play, we need to think, “Okay, what would the reaction be if Tom Brady suddenly said, ‘Hey, I don’t feel well enough to play in a big event.’”

He would get crushed, and that is perfect evidence that I was right because Ben Simmons is getting destroyed over not performing. And this is what is I said at the time: We have different standards of expected behavior for male and female athletes. Female athletes get held to a lower standard of expected performance, get treated better overall by the media, have excuses made for them — again using Simone Biles and Naomi Osaka as examples.

Whenever you criticize either of those women for not performing or not playing, Twitter blue checkmarks descend on you like a plague to attack you — as you well know, Buck, when that happened to you over the Simone Biles situation — but Ben Simmons, you just heard what Stephen A. Smith said on ESPN and everybody piled on alongside of him when Ben Simmons didn’t play.

BUCK: I’m starting to think that the woke left is lacking principles and standards and how they apply them. I’m starting to think…

CLAY: You’re starting to think that?

BUCK: I’m starting to think there’s some hypocrisy sometimes among Democrats out there in the way they view a whole range of issues, depending their personal political preferences and what they need in the moment, which, of course, is also why — I bring it all back — the notion of a free and fair and open system for sharing ideas and thoughts? Yeah. That’s something that really worries them.

CLAY: It’s also worries them, again, you have to analyze the victimization pyramid to determine how almost anything is gonna play on Twitter, right now. Maybe Elon Musk can fix that. But if you’re a woman athlete, then anybody who criticizes you is sexist and it’s unacceptable. You’re a male athlete who doesn’t play, open season. Everybody can tee off.