Stephen A Smith legitimately has tons of NBA sources, so he gets the scoopz, and when he had his old radio show, he would always book the big NBA newsmakers before anybody else, so he does have the right NBA connections. The players love him.
Aside from that, he's worthless. I remember one time he was ripping an NFL coach for not trying a game winning FG on third down, because he thought if the kicker missed, he could try again on fourth down. "Give him two shots at the thing! Un-ax-ept-a-bull."
Sla-va-med-va-den-ko.