Real talk past the box score.
All The Smoke runs on direct conversation with athletes, entertainers, and public figures. Its best moments come when a headline turns into a story about pride, pressure, old rules, or what really happened behind closed doors.
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All The Smoke is a conversation show with sports at its core and culture always within reach. It feels less like a desk show than a room where people who know the game are pressing each other for the part that usually gets softened. The questions are direct. The answers often stretch into memory. A visit with Jalen Duren becomes a way into Detroit’s turnaround, expectations, All-Star status, and what it means to anchor a team that suddenly looks serious. A CC Sabathia conversation shifts from honors and baseball legacy into the old clubhouse rules rookies had to live under. That episode is at its strongest when the talk gets specific: who got welcomed, who got hazed, and why making young players comfortable changes performance. The Portland episode carries the same energy in a different key. Rasheed, Damon, and Bonzi revisit a team remembered through a public label, then pull the listener into practices, bench competition, pride, and internal matchups that sounded harder than some games. The show also wanders productively outside the lane. Richie Rich’s episode uses radio and recording-room memories to explain how music could feel magical until the machinery became visible. CM Punk and Tom Steyer episodes show the booking range: wrestling, media conflict, politics, and public persona can sit beside NBA and MLB talk without turning the show into a formal news panel. Its style is loose but pointed. Guests get room, while the conversation keeps circling back to respect, competitive codes, and what outsiders misunderstood. It suits listeners who want the unvarnished version without needing every exchange cleaned up into a tidy take. The draw is not just access. It is the comfort level that lets a guest explain the room, the rule, the slight, or the turning point in plain language.
Made for: Built for NBA fans and sports-culture listeners who like candid interviews, player memory, and behind-the-scenes context. It also suits people drawn to hip-hop, wrestling, baseball, and public-life conversations when they are handled without polish.
What sets it apart: The show’s edge is its peer-level access: guests are pushed on the lived mechanics behind headlines, not just asked to react to them. It treats legacy, locker rooms, and media narratives as part of the same conversation.
ALL THE SMOKE pairs two of the most outspoken and controversial players of their time. Known as fiery, intense competitors during their on-court careers, Matt Barnes and Stephen Jackson are now two of the most widely respected voices by today’s crop of NBA stars. Serving as mentors to numerous players throughout the league and with their hands firmly on the pulse of the game, they have first-hand insight into the minds, lives and pressing issues facing today’s players. Barnes and Jackson, who have played alongside two generations of All-Stars, will dish on the latest news and drama from on and off the court without boundaries.
Based on 6 episodes we listened to · September 2026
Athlete and music interviews turn firsthand stories about careers, media and workplace culture into clear accounts of how influence operates.
All The Smoke lets athletes and music figures explain how power works inside the institutions they know firsthand. Matt Barnes and Stephen Jackson use expansive interviews to move from personal history into the rules governing careers, reputations and access.
A clubhouse couch, a Portland practice, a radio playlist: Matt Barnes and Stephen Jackson ask what changed.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A playlist on the desk turns a radio memory into a blunt lesson about control.
Richie Rich recalls heading into a radio station to cut drops, only to learn how much of the broadcast was handled behind the scenes. He flubs a few lines, then hears the station smooth the mistakes away and play his voice back clean.
Sabathia looks back on rookie hazing, clubhouse respect, and why young players should be treated like teammates from day one.
CC Sabathia reflects on how rookies were handled when he first came into the league, moving from hazing and small acts of disrespect to a better habit of making young players feel like part of the group right away.
A rookie's proving ground opens the clearest view of the Jail Blazers' practice culture.
The Jail Blazers story comes through as a memory of practices that could feel tougher than games, where missing a day might put a player's place in doubt.
A bus fight becomes a vivid look at how reputation could outrun identity in Compton before social media.
A bus fight opens into a sharp account of how reputation moved through Compton before social media, when a newcomer in the local sports scene could be recast almost instantly by teammates as a "super crip." The episode follows that label as it passes through players, party…
Kenny Lofton links Arizona basketball, a Triple-A break, and the rough travel rhythm of minor league baseball.
Kenny Lofton's story gives the episode its shape: a basketball player at Arizona trying to turn one baseball opening into something lasting. He talks about getting his chance at Triple-A, playing well enough to stay, and recognizing how quickly a career can bend when timing and…
Kevin Garnett's blunt call and a film-set confrontation reveal basketball's uneasy rules of accountability.
Accountability is the episode's real subject. Kevin Garnett calls after a tense moment and tells the speaker he was wrong, turning a basketball story into something sharper than a memory from the room.
The episode links hip-hop's radio history to the access gaps digital-first media can miss.
The episode frames hip-hop media history as a story about who gets reached, and who gets missed. The guest describes radio as a major force in pushing hip-hop into Top 40 space, while noting that MTV helped break Eminem after radio had already warmed the record.
Fast takes, sharp turns, loud sports arguments.
Cavaliers playoff detail, every day.
This episode features promotional content for various iHeart podcasts, including discussions on politics with Gavin Newsom and Donald Trump, the 2026 NFL Draft, a Bachelor scandal, and an interview with Will Ferrell.
A live NBA season preview featuring predictions for MVP, Finals outcomes, and Rookie of the Year for the 2025-26 season.
This episode features Willie McGinest discussing Patriots secrets, the genius of Tom Brady and Bill Belichick, and a preview of Super Bowl XL.
This episode features interviews with Sammy Sosa discussing sharing Chicago with Michael Jordan and Ryan Howard reliving the Phillies' glory days, interspersed with sponsor ads.
This episode discusses how to destroy a franchise with insights from Mad Max and Matt Barnes, covering topics like the Kings, Bucks, and NFL chaos.
Former NBA point guard Rajon Rondo joins the show to discuss his transition into coaching with the Milwaukee Bucks.
Matt Barnes and Stephen Jackson interview Damion 'Darizza' Young, a former radio programmer for Power 106 and Hot 97.
Jalen Duren tells All The Smoke's Unplugged hosts that coach JB set the standard behind Detroit's turnaround from 28 wins two years ago to a 60-win, number one seed in the East.
This episode discusses a confrontation between NBA legend Gary Payton and cannabis entrepreneur Berner over a weed strain.
This episode features Howard Bryant discussing the historical significance of Jackie Robinson and Rickey Henderson in baseball and exploring the decline of Black players in the sport.
This episode discusses CM Punk's WrestleMania matchup framed as a Jordan vs Kobe rivalry and explores his beef with Pat McAfee, interspersed with ads for other podcasts.
This episode features an interview with Tom Steyer, a billionaire running for California governor who positions himself as anti-billionaire, discussing his campaign and political views.
Richie Rich tells a radio-station story.
CC Sabathia talks about how rookies were treated when he came up and why bringing retired players back around the game matters.
The conversation starts with a question about first-team and second-team practices.
Hamilton says he was shot in the back, then played two days later with a pad over the wound.
Kenny talks through the road from Arizona basketball to minor league baseball.