When a photo of Ohio State coach Thad Matta and still-unsigned Cleveland Cavaliers guard J.R. Smith was posted on social media during last weekend's football game, I certainly had a lot of questions.
One of which went like this:
What in the world could those two have possibly been talking about?
It's been on my mind for a week now and something that was quite intriguing so, on Thursday, at Big Ten Media Day, I was able to ask Matta about his encounter with Smith.
Here is what he had to say:
"It's funny because I said to him, I said, 'J.R., this is what you missed by not going to college.' He said, 'No question about it.' He's looking around at 108,000 people and he's like, 'I missed this.' But, it definitely worked out well for him."
"As a coach, you look at guys like J.R. Smith and my man is a world champion. I don't know what it is to be a world champion, but I see the work that they put in and we were obviously excited to have him down here."
Matta said he believes Saturday was the first time he ever had the opportunity to meet Smith. Hopefully, it's not the last.
The Cavs play a preseason game at Value City Arena next week. They should probably sign their starting shooting guard before then.
