When Ayesha Curry tweeted about Game 6 of the NBA Finals being "rigged" on Thursday night, it set off a firestorm of controversy, being instantly screen-grabbed and retweeted nearly 70,000 times.

Some people felt like she crossed the line and is making her two-time league MVP husband, Stephen Curry, look bad in the process, and they implored her to exercise more constraint moving forward. Others saluted her for speaking her mind and encouraged her to keep doing so. 

But who gets to decide what Ayesha Curry's proverbial "place" is and should be? Here's a wild answer... how about Ayesha herself? After all, she's a 27-year-old business woman and mother of two, who happens to have gotten a healthy spotlight of fame cast on her through Steph's hoops career but isn't relegated to being an NBA baller wife.

Or at least that's what one would think, right?

Back-to-back shows on ESPN on Friday morning offered two very different views about Ayesha and what her "place" should be, with the degree of sexist overtones ranging from high alert to zero-tolerance, not-having-it levels.

Although she deleted her initial tweet, apologized for it and admitting she fired it out in the heat of the moment, that didn't stop Ayesha's "rigged" statement from getting scrutinized on ESPN's First Take and His & Hers on Friday morning.

Longtime sports personality Stephen A. Smith used the tweet as an opening — a wild stretch of an opening — to compare Ayesha to LeBron James's wife, Savannah.

His far-fetched point? 

If it was Savannah or LeBron's mom, Gloria, who sent out that same tweet, there'd be hell to pay for King James via heat from the media and fans.

But his diatribe was tinged with sexist overtones about both Ayesha and Savannah and their place as wives to NBA superstar husbands.

About Ayesha, Stephen A. offered:

• "She stepped out of pocket."


• "You are the wife of Steph Curry. What you do is a reflection on him."


• "You can't get caught up on your own individual emotions."

Oof!

About Savannah, Stephen A. offered:

• "She sits there... she doesn't bring any attention to herself."


• "She never tweets and goes out there and calls out the league..."


• "She thinks about how she represents [LeBron]."


• "She's quiet, she's unassuming, she doesn't bother... she stays in her lane... she plays her position."


• "She is LeBron's wife."

"She stays in her lane... she plays her position?" Bruh... stop.

Ayesha caught wind of Stephen A.'s rant, tweeting, before deleting, to blast him with:

But that only triggered more mansplaining from Stephen A, giving her condescending directions on how to not hurt Steph and herself.

"What I am trying to explain to you, Mrs. Ayesha Curry, is it's not me — it's you — because what happens is that when you're out there tweeting and saying the things you're saying, you are putting your husband in a precarious position and I'm saying if that were LeBron James and his wife, it'd be treated differently by the media and the masses," he responded to her tweet aimed at his head.

Here's the full clip of his response.

Predictably, Stephen A. got dragged on Twitter with no chill.

But there were still those people who actually agreed with him, too.

On the very next show airing on ESPN2's docket Friday morning, His & Hers, with co-hosts Michael Smith and Jemele Hill, they too tackled Ayesha's tweet. Although Michael felt like she may have crossed the line with the "rigged" talk, he quickly eliminated the sexist remarks loaded into the backlash of her tweet and that drew rave reviews from their followers on Twitter.

But not everyone agrees.

Ayesha saying the game was rigged after Steph was ejected for tossing his mouth guard may have been crossing the line as well as a severe case of sour grapes. But can we agree that to use it to illustrate a woman's place as a baller's wife is just flat out wrong?

What's your take?

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