There is no love lost between Stephen A. Smith and LeBron James.
The Los Angeles Lakers superstar appeared on Wednesday’s edition of The Pat McAfee Show for a long and wide-ranging interview. And, as one would expect after the viral incident between James and the First Take host earlier this month, Smith was a topic of discussion.
James went full bore on Stephen A., saying that the ESPN host is on a “Taylor Swift tour run right now,” discussing the public spat over comments he made about James’ son, Bronny, and his playing time on the Lakers.
“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 gonna be happy as hell. He’s gonna be smiling from ear to ear when he hears me talking about him again. Oh my God, he’s, he’s gonna get home and grab some ice cream out of the f**king freezer and sit in his chair in his tighty whities on the couch…. like, dude, like relax, bro, like relax, like seriously.”
Smith took to his podcast Wednesday night to return fire.
“I just want to say, for the record, LeBron James is full of it,” Smith began. “And in this particular instance, as it pertains to his son, he is a liar. And he went on national television today and he lied again.”
Smith then went on to recount the incident with James, which occurred during the third quarter of a Lakers game while the ESPN frontman was sitting courtside.
“I didn’t know he was going to roll up on me. I had no idea. But when he said what he had to say, I was in no position to give any kind of retort without making a scene. It was during the third quarter. It was fresh out of a timeout. It was him walking to the basketball court. It was on national television, the cameras were rolling and had I done something, what do you all want me to do? Do you want me to act like this is a reincarnation of Chris Rock and Will Smith?
“And let me state for the record, that while we bring up that, let me assure you it wouldn’t have gone down like that. I would have gotten my ass kicked. Because if that man put his hands on me, I would’ve immediately swung on him. Immediately. That, I’m not going to tolerate. But I knew he wasn’t going to do something like that.”
As shocking as it is to hear Smith hypothesize how a brawl between him and a professional athlete twice his size would go, that served as more of a distraction from his main point. Smith believes that James mischaracterized his prior comments about Bronny during his Wednesday appearance on McAfee’s show.
“I have not been talking about Bronny James,” Smith said. “I have not, as LeBron James accused me of doing to my face, been shitting on his son. I clapped back at D-Wade and Melo, two brothers I love dearly, when they were talking about this, even though 99% of the stuff they said was right. I was not clapping back at his son.”
Without knowing exactly what words were exchanged between LeBron James and Stephen A. Smith on the court earlier this month, it’s difficult to know who to believe.
But one thing is certain, LeBron and Stephen A. won’t be exchanging Christmas cards anytime soon.
