Matt Flegenheimer, “Stephen A. Smith Is Running. To Be Joe Rogan”:

Mr. Smith, peerless at the performance of reluctance, has said he has “no choice” but to consider a 2028 run, claiming that politicos, strangers and his pastor have encouraged him. Nameless billionaires, he said, have approached him about “exploratory committees and things of that nature.” He has also called himself “woefully unqualified.”

The not-ruling-anything-out routine has invited pushback from inside and outside his orbit.

“Calm down, Stephen A.,” Charles Barkley, a friend and fellow basketball broadcaster, told Sports Illustrated. (“Even when he insults me,” Mr. Smith said, “he insults me out of love.”)