No one believes LeBron James thinks about Skip Bayless as much as Skip Bayless thinks about LeBron James, except for maybe Skip Bayless.

During the latest episode of The Skip Bayless Show, the Fox Sports host responded to a listener question that asked, “Is LeBron starting a podcast in response to yours?”

The question derived from an earlier tweet by James which said, “Jumping on someone podcast soon. Maybe my own,” paired with a thinking face emoji. Bayless has a lot of arrogance, but even he can’t be conceited enough to believe he’s the reason why the newly crowned billionaire is thinking about launching his own podcast. Right?

“Interesting question,” Bayless said as he contemplated an answer. “Well wouldn’t that be presumptuous of me to say that was the case. But you know, now that I think about it. Yes! I do presume that LeBron just might be starting a podcast, in part, maybe in large part because of my podcast.”

You can listen to Skip’s response for yourself, but I did not hear an ounce of sarcasm in his answer. There was no chuckle, no smirk, no self-awareness as Bayless answered with a resounding “Yes!” Maybe he’s a good actor, maybe he’s going to later admit he was joking, but for now, we’re going to take him at his word because last week, Bayless passionately told us he believes everything he says.

“I believe that LeBron gets rankled by some of my longer form opinions that I’m able to express in this format,” Bayless continued on this week’s podcast. “Because he doesn’t have his man, LeShannon Sharpe, my debate partner, to interrupt me and to defend him. Now I can painstakingly, and I would think even more conclusively, expose LeBron’s many flaws step-by-step, level-by-level-by-level, and I can thoroughly annihilate any GOAT case that LeBron could barely make.”

The 70-year-old sports talk star will painstakingly expose LeBron’s flaws and annihilate his case as the greatest NBA player of all time, but don’t call him a contrarian, he doesn’t like that. Bayless planted his flag as the world’s premier LeBron James hater more than a decade ago. And despite watching James build a resume worthy of GOAT discussion, Bayless continues to disparage the NBA superstar. Not only does Bayless believe James pales in comparison to Michael Jordan, but now he’ll soon pale to Bayless in the podcast world as well?

“Yes, I believe that LeBron would love to be able to hype himself to his billions of blind witnesses out there, to continue to bamboozle them by going solo for an hour on his own podcast where he can control the complete narrative on his own stage without those pesky reporters interrupting,” Bayless said.

“Can you imagine back in the day, Michael Jeffrey Jordan saying, ‘you know, I need to do a podcast to respond to all my critics out there,’” Bayless continued. “I covered the man, I knew the man, I know what he’s made of. He did not care one ounce, one whit about anything anybody ever said about him to the negative.”

Jordan may not have considered launching a podcast to respond to his critics, but would he have considered launching a podcast if it was a smart business opportunity? James recently reached a net worth of $1 billion, according to Forbes, and his SpringHill media company is a large reason why. With his sights on owning an NBA franchise in the near future, it’s possible that James views the $14 billion podcast industry as a smart business venture and not just a way of responding to Bayless.

[The Skip Bayless Show]

About Brandon Contes

Brandon Contes is a staff writer for Awful Announcing and The Comeback. He previously helped carve the sports vertical for Mediaite and spent more than three years with Barrett Sports Media. Send tips/comments/complaints to bcontes@thecomeback.com