ESPN host Stephen A. Smith launched a tirade during Friday’s broadcast of “First Take,” agreeing with LeBron James and saying that a suspension of “at least five games” for Brooklyn Nets guard Kyrie Irving was “excessive.”

Smith took the assessment a bit further, however, saying that the suspension — which came about because Irving tweeted a clip from a film rife with anti-semitic tropes (“Hebrews to Negroes: Wake Up Black America”) — was akin to people “trying to put their knee and keep their knee on Kyrie’s neck.”

Irving initially refused to apologize, which led to the suspension, but offered an apology after he was suspended. “To all the Jewish families and communities that are hurt and affected from my post, I am deeply sorry to have caused you pain, and I apologize.”

And Smith argued that if NBA Commissioner Adam Silver — who is Jewish — could say that he didn’t believe Irving was anti-semitic, that should be the end of it.

“We got riots that took place in the streets a couple of years ago. And I told everyone back then; I said when George Floyd had that knee on his neck, what people didn’t get, outside of the black community, is that black folks were going off because we were saying from a figurative perspective, from a metaphorical perspective, we always feel like we got a knee on our neck,” Smith claimed. “And that’s where the frustration and the fulminant of vitriol and hostility and, dare I say; violence came shining through.”

Smith went on to draw a line from what happened to George Floyd — when he was killed in the custody of former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin — to the way the team was treating Irving.

“So here we are again. Now, this doesn’t have anything to do with that in a literal perspective, but this is somebody or a bunch of people out there trying to put their knee and keep their knee on Kyrie’s neck. Kyrie does not deserve that,” Smith continued. “He made a mistake. He made a mistake; he had to apologize for it. He’s been embarrassed because of it. He’s cost himself money because of it. He’s been suspended because of it.”

Smith then argued that there were racial implications to Irving’s suspension as well, suggesting that if Irving was white, his suspension might have a definitive end point.

WATCH:

America don't think I haven't noticed what you have done! Let Kyrie go back and play! #KyrieIrving #lethimplay #FirstTake pic.twitter.com/w16Wj5Iu5U

— Stephen A Smith (@stephenasmith) November 11, 2022

Cryptocurrency exchange platform FTX experienced a liquidity crisis that led to the company’s bankruptcy and erased the fortune of Sam Bankman-Fried, its young billionaire founder.

FTX, which is headquartered in the Bahamas, was launched in 2019 and had accrued more than one million users by 2022. Users suddenly demanded $6 billion in withdrawals after an article published by CoinDesk revealed last week that the two arms of Bankman-Fried’s cryptocurrency empire, FTX and Alamada Research, had significant overlap on their balance sheets in the form of the cryptocurrency FTT, which FTX invented. Rival firm Binance, which had been planning to purchase FTX, announced that it would discharge all holdings in the coin and eventually reversed course on the acquisition.

“Every time a major player in an industry fails, retail consumers will suffer,” Binance said in a statement. “We have seen over the last several years that the crypto ecosystem is becoming more resilient and we believe in time that outliers that misuse user funds will be weeded out by the free market. As regulatory frameworks are developed and as the industry continues to evolve toward greater decentralization, the ecosystem will grow stronger.”

Bankman-Fried, who is 30 years old, went from boasting a $15.6 billion net worth to having “no material wealth,” according to data from the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. The entrepreneur resigned on Friday as his company filed for bankruptcy. “I’m sorry. That’s the biggest thing,” the founder said on social media. “I f***ed up, and should have done better.”

Cryptocurrency, decentralized digital money that can be transferred between users’ virtual wallets, has been the subject of skepticism from regulators over the past several years. The price of FTT fell from $23.53 on Sunday to $2.61 on Friday, while the price of Bitcoin dropped more than 20% over the past five days, reaching a price of $16,691.70 as of Friday afternoon.

FTX had been valuated at more than $30 billion before the sudden liquidity crisis. Sequoia Capital, one of the leading venture capital firms in Silicon Valley, announced a $150 million loss due to the collapse in a letter to investors defending the company’s due diligence process.

“We are in the business of taking risk. Some investments will surprise to the upside, and some will surprise to the downside,” the letter explained. “We do not take this responsibility lightly and do extensive research and thorough diligence on every investment we make.”

A number of lawmakers announced renewed pushes to investigate the sector after FTX filed for bankruptcy. “The events that have transpired this week reinforce the clear need for greater federal oversight of the digital asset industry,” Sen. John Boozman (R-AR) remarked.

“The recent collapse of FTX is a loud warning bell that cryptocurrencies can fail, and just like we saw with over-the-counter derivatives that led to a financial crisis, these failures can have a ripple effect on consumers and other parts of our financial system,” Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) said in a statement. “The cryptocurrency market’s continued turmoil is why we must think carefully about how to regulate cryptocurrencies and their role in our economy.”