Things are getting nastier and nastier between ESPN’s Stephen A. Smith and LeBron James, and everything reached a boiling point on Thursday morning. The feud started when Stephen A. Smith pleaded with LeBron to stop what Smith deemed was nepotism in having his son, Bronny, be a rostered member of the Los Angeles Lakers.
“I am pleading with LeBron James as a father: Stop this,” Smith said on ESPN’s debate show, First Take. “Stop this. We all know that Bronny James is in the NBA because of his dad.”
James took exception to this and, after noticing Smith courtside, confronted him personally in the middle of a Lakers game, which has since become a viral moment. Smith responded to James’s confrontation with a press tour of sorts where he condemned James’s public confrontation, saying that James should have kept things private.
James responded to the situation in an interview with the Pat McAfee Show that aired on Wednesday afternoon.
“Stephen A Smith is on a Taylor Swift tour run right now. He completely missed the whole point.. He got personal with it, and it’s my job to not only protect my own household but also all the players,” James said to McAfee.
Thursday morning was Smith’s turn to respond, and he did not hold back.
“I suggest that he be happy with the things that I haven’t brought up,” Smith said in a clip posted to Twitter by Awful Announcing. “I never brought up really and never really discussed why you were not at Kobe Bryant’s memorial service.
“I never really brought up or discussed why you did not attend Dwyane Wade’s Hall of Fame induction when that man was directly responsible for you capturing a championship for the first time in your career.”
That wasn’t all Smith had to say.
“The day he came up to me was the day my new contract was announced. So he knows like everybody else, it’s going to be a little while before I go away. I was here before he got here in 2003.
“And in all likelihood, I’m going to be here when he’s gone. You gotta deal with that, bro. Plain and simple. It ain’t a crime for Michael Jordan to be a GOAT. But clearly, it’s something that’s a crime with him.”
Smith’s colleague at EPSN, Kendrick Perkins, joined First Take to denounce LeBron’s actions as well.
“LeBron James need to stop. He needs to stop. I’m so sick of him with this ‘oh how the league is covered’ because he wanted to be covered a certain way.”
It would be surprising if LeBron let things end here.
About Qwame Skinner
Qwame Skinner has loved both writing and sports his entire life. In addition to his sports coverage at Comeback Media, Qwame writes novels, and his debut; The First Casualty, an adult fantasy, is out now.