ESPN cut Max Kellerman loose in 2022 and he still hasn't learned to keep his mouth shut.
Now he's taking a historic Knicks comeback and using it to attack the President of the United States.
And social media reminded him exactly why nobody watches his podcast.
Kellerman Couldn't Let a Great Game Just Be a Great Game
The New York Knicks pulled off one of the greatest comebacks in NBA playoff history Tuesday night.
Down 22 points to the Cleveland Cavaliers with less than eight minutes left, the Knicks didn't panic.
They picked apart James Harden defensively, chipped away at the lead in regulation, then outscored Cleveland 14-3 in overtime to steal Game 1 of the Eastern Conference Finals 115-104.
It was the biggest postseason comeback in Knicks history – the second-biggest in 30 years of NBA playoffs.
Every sports fan in America had something to say about what they just watched.
https://twitter.com/JonnyRoot_/status/2057142959628595208?s=20
Max Kellerman decided to talk about Donald Trump.
"Bringing in James Harden to win a championship is like electing Donald Trump to fix your country," Kellerman said on his Game Over podcast.
A game for the ages – and that's the best he could do.
Knicks coach Mike Brown didn't bother hiding the strategy after the final buzzer.
"There is no secret: We were attacking Harden," Brown told reporters.
Jalen Brunson shot 7-of-11 when Harden was his primary defender.
Harden finished with 15 points, six turnovers, and went 1-of-8 from three.
That's a lot to analyze.
Kellerman chose Trump.
This Is Not a New Pattern
This is who Kellerman has always been.
In 2018, when the Houston Astros accepted President Trump's White House invitation after winning the World Series, Kellerman went on First Take and announced they were making "a grave error" and were "on the wrong side of history."
That same year, Tiger Woods said Americans should respect the office of the presidency regardless of who holds it – a diplomatic, sensible comment from a man who just wanted to talk about golf.
Kellerman said he was "angry" about it and called Woods' statement "a thoughtless statement dressed up as a thoughtful statement."
Then in 2020, Kellerman went on air and told viewers that Trump voters in the South were "susceptible to very low-quality information, easy to propagandize, and almost immune to facts."
He was describing your neighbors.
Your family.
The 74 million Americans who voted for Trump that year.
Eight years of chances to stop injecting Trump into sports coverage.
Eight years of the same result.
Stephen A. Smith Finally Had Enough
There's a reason Stephen A. Smith – no conservative – went to ESPN management and demanded Kellerman be removed from First Take.
According to OutKick, one of the driving issues was that Kellerman had positioned himself even further to the left than Smith on racial and political topics – so far left that the partnership had become professionally untenable.
Smith made the call himself.
He walked into ESPN management and gave them an ultimatum: Kellerman goes, or he goes.
Management called him back two hours later with Kellerman's removal confirmed.
That was 2021.
https://twitter.com/PolymarketHoops/status/2057122648594026647?s=20
Kellerman left ESPN entirely the following year and landed on a podcast called Game Over – which, given the trajectory, is doing a lot of work as a title.
Sports Was the Last Safe Space
Here's what the woke sports media crowd never figures out.
The audience they're alienating is the one that built these platforms.
The man who's watched First Take since it launched in 2002 doesn't want to hear about Trump when the Knicks are erasing a 22-point deficit in the fourth quarter.
He wants to talk about basketball.
Stephen A. Smith has said this out loud – warning on Real Time with Bill Maher that when broadcasters weaponize sports for political agendas, they drive away the very fans who made the product worth watching in the first place.
Sports is one of the last places in American life where people from every background sit down and root for the same team.
Kellerman keeps burning it down for a Trump zinger nobody asked for.
ESPN gave him the exit in 2021 for exactly this kind of thing.
He's still at it.
Sources:
- Bobby Burack, "Former ESPN Host Max Kellerman Belittles James Harden's Poor Performance with Comparison to Trump," OutKick, May 20, 2026.
- Bryan Chai, "Brutal NBA Playoff Collapse Somehow Sparks Unprovoked Attack on President Trump," The Western Journal, May 21, 2026.
- Jay Maxson, "ESPN's Kellerman Blasts World Series Champs for Agreeing to Celebrate at Trump's White House," NewsBusters, January 5, 2018.
- Brian Flood, "ESPN Appeared to Be Moving Away from Politics Until Max Kellerman Slammed Tiger Woods," Fox News, August 28, 2018.
- Staff, "Stephen A. Smith Demanded ESPN Remove One Person From 'First Take'," The Spun, May 25, 2025.
