Earlier in the month, Los Angeles Lakers superstar LeBron James confronted ESPN commentator Stephen A. Smith courtside at a game. According to Smith, the reason James started speaking with him had to do with comments pertaining to his son, Bronny James. During this commentary, Smith pleaded with James as a father to “stop this” and stated that his son was only in the NBA because of LeBron’s influence. Since this has taken place, Smith has spoken about the incident on several occasions on ESPN’s First Take and on his podcast, The Stephen A. Smith Show, which is produced by Straight Shooter Media and available on the iHeartPodcast Network.
During an appearance on The Pat McAfee Show on Wednesday, James discussed the situation and explained that Smith missed the entire point. Before elucidating his thoughts on how Smith responded to the entire ordeal though, he explained that Smith may not have been telling the truth about his intent when video began circulating of what transpired. James drew an analogy of Smith being on a “Taylor Swift tour run” at the moment and further elaborated on the aftermath.
“It started off with, ‘I didn’t want to address it. I didn’t want to address it, I wasn’t going to address it, but since the video came out, I feel the need to address it.’ Motherf****r, are you kidding me? If there’s one person that couldn’t wait until the video had dropped so you could address it, it was your ass. Seriously?”
Within his discourse, James articulated that he would never prohibit people from talking about the sport or criticizing players about what they do on the court. In fact, he averred that it is part of Smith’s job to discuss player performance and that it is all part of the game. The aspect of what took place towards which he seemingly took umbrage pertained to the commentary becoming personal, a sentiment that Smith has tried to clarify on the airwaves.
“But when you take it and you get personal with it, it’s my job to not only protect my damn household, but protect the players,” James said, “and I think a lot of the media, including him – and I know he’s going to be happy as well; he’s going to be smiling from ear to ear when he hears me talking about him again. Oh my God, he’s going to get home and grab some ice cream out of the f*****g freezer and sit in his chair in his tighty-whities on the couch…. Dude, relax bro. Like, relax. Seriously.”
Earlier in the day, The New York Times reported that James had signed a three-year deal with Amazon’s Wondery to bring back his podcast, Mind the Game, with new co-host Steve Nash. Nash formerly coached the Brooklyn Nets and is a member of the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame. James previously co-hosted the podcast with JJ Redick, who was hired by the Los Angeles Lakers in the offseason to become the team’s head coach. James is the all-time leading scorer in league history and the first player in the Association to ever eclipse 40,000 points combining regular-season and postseason play.
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