Stephen A. Smith has ‘no relationship’ with LeBron James after feud: ‘I have nothing to say’

Months after their disagreements spilled over into a real-life confrontation at Crypto.com Arena earlier this year, any relationship between Stephen A Smith and LeBron James has fizzled.

What began as a comment on James’ handling of the NBA Draft process with his son, Bronny, turned far more serious when James confronted Smith during a Los Angeles Lakers game last season. After that, the two exchanged barbs over the internet before James ultimately appeared on The Pat McAfee Show to rip Smith and a wide variety of other enemies.

Now, Smith says he has no contact with James and no interest in ever speaking with the NBA legend again.

“There’s no situation and there’s no relationship,” Smith said Friday on the Gil’s Arena livestream. “He doesn’t like me, and I don’t like him.”

Earlier in the summer, Smith expressed that he and James were bound to clash because of a shared disdain for one another. But on Friday on the Gil’s Arena podcast, Smith went a step further.

Asked about James this time, Smith hinted at prior attempts by James to come at him but refused to re-engage. However, Smith took particular note of James’ decision to choose a fellow ESPNer, Pat McAfee, for his sitdown. That interview notably aired on the network directly following Smith’s First Take.

“All I would say is people don’t know the things that have happened behind the scenes,” Smith said. “Things that have been said, who they’ve been said to. The kind of things that have been engaged in in an effort to hurt me, along with contemporaries and others.”

“There’s a lot of sh*t that I don’t say. And there’s a reason that I feel the way that I do. And the last straw was him approaching me and turning the Bronny thing into something about me attacking somebody’s family, when it was him I was talking about. Not Bronny. And then to go on The Pat McAfee Show, which comes directly on after my show. On the channel that I work on. To insult me. Now, people can get into all kind of components that go into it and all that other stuff. I have nothing to say.”

When James confronted Smith courtside, it had been nearly a year since Smith’s commentary on Bronny. That’s plenty of time for James’ frustration to marinate and drive him to address the ESPN host directly. But Smith is hinting that there is more to the story; that James had been targeting him far longer.

In his final comments, Smith insisted James would only come up for him in the context of NBA analysis from now on, but sounded as though he was still biting his tongue over the way the situation unfolded.

“I’m never going to denigrate any employer, any partner, or myself by getting into anything excessively, unnecessarily, when it comes to him or anybody else,” Smith said. “I’m going to do my job. I’m going to cover the game of basketball. But if I never, ever speak to him again in life, that will be OK. And I’m good with it.”