Los Angeles Lakers star LeBron James and ESPN commentator Stephen A. Smith escalated their war of words that began earlier this month when James confronted Smith during a Lakers game over Smith’s coverage of his son.
James, appearing on ESPN’s “The Pat McAfee Show,” criticized Smith for making personal attacks as opposed to discussing on-court play when talking about the NBA, and also accused him for exploiting their confrontation for personal gain.
The back and forth began on March 6, when James sought out Smith for an animated conversation before the fourth quarter of a Los Angeles win over the New York Knicks, with both sides since confirming the conversation centered on Smith’s coverage of James’s son Bronny James, whom the Lakers drafted with the 55th pick last June.
Smith had been critical of Bronny James earlier this season, saying in late January that the younger James belonged in the developmental G-League and not the NBA.
“I am pleading with LeBron James as a father: stop this. Stop this,” Smith said on ESPN’s “First Take” in late January. “We all know that Bronny James is in the NBA because of his dad.”
LeBron James hinted at his frustration with the media in late February, criticizing talking heads such as Smith when asked a question about who should be the face of the league.
“Why do you wanna be the face of the league when all the people that cover our game and talk about our game on a day-to-day basis s— on everybody?,” James told reporters in the locker room on Feb. 28.
A few days later, James would confront Smith in person, an action Smith — who discussed the conversation on several platforms — would describe as “weak.”
Then on Wednesday, in an interview released on ESPN’s “The Pat McAfee Show,” James said Smith used the in-person confrontation for more attention, claiming the ESPNer was on a “Taylor Swift tour run” of discussing the incident.
“He completely missed the whole point. The whole point,” James said of Smith. “Never would I ever not allow people to talk about the sport and criticize players about what they do. That is your job to criticize, or to be in a position where if a guy’s not performing, you know? That’s all part of the game. 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.”
Smith has since fired back on multiple platforms, first on his own podcast Wednesday night, then again on “First Take” on Thursday morning.
“I just want to say for the record LeBron James is full of it and in this particular instance, as it pertains to his son, he is a liar,” Smith said on his podcast, which was nearly an hour-long monologue about James. He also claimed he would have tried to punch James if the basketball player had touched him during their face-to-face in Los Angeles.
On “First Take,” Smith continued to discuss James.
“He continues to lie to the world about what I said and who I was pointing the figure at,” Smith said. “To regurgitate an obvious point, when I talked about Bronny James early in the season and I highlighted the fact that at that particular moment in time he simply was not ready, I was calling out LeBron James.”
He also added: “I suggest that he be happy with the things that I haven’t brought up. 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.”
(Smith later clarified, as was reported at the time, James did attend Bryant’s memorial service but was not shown on camera.)
Amid all the back and forth, James is still performing his duties as a basketball player. The Lakers defeated the Indiana Pacers 120-119 on Wednesday, as James tipped in a buzzer-beating layup as time expired to give Los Angeles the win.
Skip Bayless, Smith’s former debate partner on “First Take” and a longtime James critic, posted on X that James’s game winner was “THE EASIEST WALK-OFF BUZZER-BEATER IN NBA HISTORY.”
