North Carolina A&T golfer and former NBA champion J.R. Smith was suspended in March 2018 for “throwing soup” at a Cavaliers assistant coach.
Smith, the subject of a docuseries on Amazon, recently appeared on The Old Man and The Three podcast with J.J. Redick. While the former NBA champ was promoting his docuseries, Redfined, he was asked about what led to the soup-throwing incident.
At the time, Smith said he didn’t recall what type of soup he threw at former Cavs assistant coach Damon Jones. ESPN’s Brian Windhorst knew what type of soup was involved but for some reason, he refused to share details as a silent protest.
Eventually, however, The Athletic’s Jason Lloyd revealed it was actually chicken tortilla soup. Smith has since argued that it was actually more of a “toss” than a throw.
Finally, however, we learned why Smith made this decision. This is what he told Redick at the 1-hour, 10-minute mark:
“Damon Jones is my guy. I love D-Jones. Everybody knows. But he has a knack of playing too much. For me, don’t get me wrong, I like to play a little joke here and there. Kikiki. But he is consistent with it. And for me, if I’m telling you: ‘I’m not in the mood right now.’ Like bro, I had some stuff going on at home. I wasn’t playing well. I was like dude, not right now.”
So we know that Smith was in a bad mood and we know that Jones was messing around with him.
But what happened next?
“Sure enough, I’m in the lunch room, getting my soup and he comes in and mind you the soup is hot. I’m like the first person in there. He’s like trying to make me spill it. I’m not going to lie. It took me a second because I actually thought about it. It wasn’t like a rageful throw. It was like: ‘Okay, you’re playing with me. I know you’re playing with me. I’m going to show you.’ I literally thought about it and I threw it on him. He’s over there screaming because the [expletive] is hot. I’m like, see, you want to stop playing now with me now right?”
Smith also confirmed that it was a tomato-based chicken tortilla soup.
The next day, according to Smith, he received an apology from Jones.
Jones is on record saying that it was the bowl and the soup that landed on him and because it was the first bowl out of the pot, it was hot as hell. He said it took a few months for them to speak again.
