Timothée Chalamet's style inspiration embarrassed himself on national television
“Sabrina, don’t let any man put boundaries on you like Kenny.”
Last weekend, the National Basketball Association set women up for failure. It was a well-meaning, unintentional setup, but a setup nonetheless. In a half-hearted attempt to champion women’s sports—but with no real understanding of what men are like in comment sections—the NBA announced “Stephen vs. Sabrina,” which saw two of the game’s greatest shooters compete head-to-head in a 3-Point Contest at NBA All-Star Weekend. On February 18th, Stephen Curry, the NBA’s all-time leader in three-pointers, would take on Sabrina Ionescu, whose 37-point final-round performance at last summer’s WNBA All-Star Weekend set a record for a 3-Point Contest — NBA or WNBA.
It was originally Ionescu herself who challenged Curry to a one-on-one following her historic performance in 2023. Curry again raised the challenge when he was mic’d up during Golden State’s game against the Sacramento Kings on January 25th, and Ionescu responded on social media officially accepting the challenge. The NBA ran with it, advertising the sharpshooting contest as if it were a marquee boxing match—even presenting a heavyweight belt to the eventual winner, which, spoiler alert, was Curry. It would be a contemporary “Battle of the Sexes,” the 1973 tennis match between Bobby Riggs and Billie Jean King, which King won in three sets (however, unlike Riggs, Steph Curry does not hate women).
The frustrating reality is that female athletes can’t do anything without it being a reflection of all female athletes. So “Steph vs. Sabrina” was never just going to be about Steph and Sabrina—it was going to be about the legitimacy of women’s sports.
My best friend Maya told me her thoughts on the matchup when I was with her the weekend before in simple terms: “It makes me sick to my stomach thinking about it.” I was relieved that someone else was also aware of how much was (unjustly) being placed on Ionescu’s shoulders—it was more than just her reputation. In my eyes, “Steph vs. Sabrina” would gift the opportunity for men to invalidate women’s talent for years to come should she fail. And if she won? Well, it wouldn’t be a “legitimate” win because she would be shooting with a WNBA ball (smaller than the NBA ball) and from the WNBA three-point line (closer to the basket than the NBA line). If she won, it would be because Steph went “easy on her,” or to prove “he wasn’t a misogynist.” I had done the mental math and it looked like Sabrina Ionescu would be playing a zero-sum game.
The day before the competition, Ionescu announced that she would be shooting from the NBA three-point line (23 feet and nine inches) after having been originally slated to shoot from the WNBA line (22 feet and 1.75 inches). In doing this, Ionescu effectively took away an “excuse” should she win—it was a gamble, but one that would yield a greater return should she capitalize. If her decision was in anticipation of invalidation should she win from the WNBA line, I have no idea; but even this decision proved to be ammunition for those looking for it.
Ionescu opened by making seven straight shots before finishing with a total score of 26, tying the highest score by any NBA player in the 3-Point Contest held earlier Saturday night and won by the Milwaukee Bucks' Damian Lillard. Only her direct competitor, Stephen Curry—the greatest shooter in the game’s history—put up a higher total (29), ultimately giving him the edge in their one-on-one showdown.
“I think a night like tonight shows a lot of young girls and young boys that, if you can shoot, you can shoot,” Ionescu said after the contest. “It doesn’t matter if you’re a girl or boy, I think it just matters the heart that you have and wanting to be the best you can be.”
It didn’t feel like she had lost, it felt like she had put on a show. She had gone toe-to-toe with Steph Curry from the NBA line, and in 15 minutes had cemented herself on the pantheon of the world’s greatest shooters, male or female. It would have been a pure show of skills and sportsmanship if you watched it all unfold without audio. But on the mic, one man was intent on detracting from Ionescu and what she had conveyed on the court.
The league’s All-Star Game audience peaked with 5.4 million viewers between 10:00 PM EST and 10:15 PM EST, which, you guessed it—was during the Steph vs. Sabrina 3-Point Challenge. 5.4 million people watched a display of individual brilliance as Ionescu proved she could shoot alongside the very best. 5.4 million people were also subjected to the misogynistic ramblings of Kenny “The Jet” Smith as he provided the shootout’s on-air commentary for TNT. Yes, the same Kenny “The Jet” Smith whom Timothée Chalamet recently called his style inspiration, which is starting to make more and more sense with each one of Chalamet’s eyesore-inducing red carpet looks on the Dune: Part Two press tour. While calling the action alongside Reggie Miller, Smith continuously insisted that Ionescu should have shot from the WNBA line, despite her stellar performance from a longer range.
“She should have shot it from the women’s line,” Smith insisted. “That would have been a fair contest. I still root for Sabrina … But she should have shot from the three-point line that the women shoot from.”
Miller responded, asking his broadcasting partner why he was “putting those boundaries on her.” Smith doubled down on his take, comparing the situation to golf where “there’s a women’s tee in golf, and there’s a men’s tee.” Miller—who won plenty of respect from me in this exchange—fired back and said “Sabrina, don’t let any man put boundaries on you like Kenny.” When Smith continued complaining about Ionescu’s decision, Miller replied “According to you, you want her just playing with dolls.”
His belittling musings did not go unnoticed by the game’s superstars—reigning MVP Joel Embiid tweeted “Kenny Smith been drinking lmao,” while former WNBA-great Sue Bird called for more women in sports broadcasting. “We needed a woman on the headsets, too. So much nuance & storytelling missed.” When Smith appeared on the Stephen A. Smith Show on Monday, he called his shambolic storytelling “much ado about nothing,” and argued that it was taken out of context. Well, Mr. Smith, the context of your commentary was the competition you were calling in real-time, an event whose viewing experience was marred by your half-baked thoughts that were ultimately about what you think women can and cannot do. No Monday morning talk-show “explanation” will ever change that.
While we’re on the topic of context—a word that is actually being used correctly in this case—the context of the above photo of Chalamet is that he showed up looking like that on the same carpet as Zendaya who arrived in the archival pull of the century: Mugler's iconic FW95 naked armor ensemble, which I never thought I would see somebody wear in my lifetime. If I was Timmy, I would be hanging my head in shame.