J.R. Smith Explains Why Sam Dekker Is The One Teammate He Doesn’t Respect In His 16 Year Career, Dekker Responds

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J.R. Smith has been teammates with the me-first Carmelo Anthony, Steve Blake (who we’ve learned will square up with anyone), the perpetually angry Kendrick Perkins, the Zhejiang Golden Bulls, and Jared Dudley, yet the only teammate he’s hated in his 16 year NBA career is….Sam Dekker?

Sam led the Wisconsin Badgers on one of the greatest runs in college basketball history, but you may know him as the guy who tripped over a dense patch of air in a meaningless NBA game in November of 2016.

Dekker is now playing pro ball in Turkey after four seasons in the league, but in 2018, he played on the Cavs with J.R. Smith.

Smith recently explained on the All Things Covered podcast why Dekker is the one teammate he couldn’t stand in his 16-year career with 5 different teams.

“Throughout my whole career, it’s only one teammate I really don’t like. And he know that. And everybody else, I’m just cool with,” he said, per NBC Sports. “This dude Sam Dekker, dog. I can’t – this dude. He did some bulls— on the bus one day, talking some Trump s—, and I just wasn’t having it.”

“For what the question he asked, it’s a thought pattern. You’re taught that,” Smith continued. “It’s not like – it’s the hate you give. And I feel like it’s something you’re taught. It’s not – the privilege he has was taught to him, and he took heed of it and run with it even further than somebody who was not – who was oblivious to what they have and what the life they lived. Because some people just go through their life – not necessarily knowing, but not aware and privy to somebody else’s circumstances. He’s a person who’s just very aware of somebody else’s circumstances and want to keep them there, as opposed to try to help him elevate up. And I don’t respect anything about that.”

The same season the two were teammates, Dekker earned the temporary nickname DeKKKer after posting and deleting a tweet in response to former Wisconsin teammate Bronson Koenig tweeting an article titled “White People Have No Culture.” Dekker responded saying: “Don’t put it in my face that being a white guy is something I’m supposed to be ashamed of. Im proud of who I am and so should you.”

According to Cavalier’s Nation, Dekker responded to Smith’s accusation with a tweet that appears to have been deleted. Ah, the beauty of screenshots.

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Stay petty, NBA.