Stephen A. Smith wasted little time responding to what LeBron James said about him on The Pat McAfee Show.
In fact, even after he addressed the matter at length on Wednesday’s episode of The Stephen A. Smith Show, Thursday’s episode of First Take opened with a clip of James’ comments. The show’s star proceeded to go on an uninterrupted 15-minute rant responding to James, touching on a variety topics related to his issues with the 4-time MVP.
As one might have expected, Smith didn’t hold back — even in instances he was claiming he was. With that in mind, here are the seven craziest moments to come from ESPN’s $100 million man’s quarter-hour response.
1. Smith doubles down on calling James a liar
As he did during his podcast on Wednesday, Smith repeatedly claimed that James has been lying throughout this whole ordeal.
While the root issue here has been ostensibly been Smith’s coverage of Bronny James, the 4-time NBA champion insisted on Wednesday that he’s OK with his older son being covered like any other NBA player would be. The ESPN star, however, says that’s clearly not the case, reiterating that his issue has never been with Bronny, but rather his father’s handling of the situation.
“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. LeBron James never addresses that with anybody and for some reason no one ever asked him about that.”
As we’ll get to later, Smith also doesn’t believe that this is actually all about Bronny anyways.
2. Addressing Smith was James’ primary objective in appearing on PMS
James’ comments regarding Smith made up just a tiny fraction of his hour-long sit down with the former All-Pro punter. But according to the former Philadelphia Inquirer columnist, the 4-time NBA champion’s primary objective in appearing on the show wasn’t to promote the rebooted version of his Mind the Game podcast. Rather, it was to retaliate against Smith.
“LeBron James, who really outside of his crew doesn’t really have any friends in the media, suddenly he’s going to be in Indianapolis driving into the country and go and do a show that comes on immediately after First Take,” Smith said. “Clearly they were looking at it and they used the upcoming Mind Your Game podcast with Steve Nash to disguise what his real agenda was which which was to address me.”
While it’s not a stretch to say that James’ moves are often calculated, the reality is that he could have appeared on The Pat McAfee Show remotely at any point in the last three weeks if he wanted to address his viral on-court confrontation with Smith. Nevertheless, Smith believes that the decision to appear on the show was a shot across the bow at him, even if that shot came in the form of one answer over the course of an hour-long interview.
3. James’ appearance was negotiated
As evidenced by Aaron Rodgers’ weekly appearances, we know that Pat McAfee isn’t averse to paying guests. And while it’s unclear whether James was compensated for his appearance on Wednesday, Smith believes that at least some sort of negotiation took place.
“This was planned. Rich Paul was on Pat McAfee’s show about 10 days earlier or whatever. Rich Paul for everybody that knows is the man, the founder of Klutch Sports. He’s a strategic thinker. He didn’t go there by accident. You’re there talking with Pat McAfee and the next thing you know within two weeks after obviously a negotiation took place, LeBron James is on it.
“We know a negotiation took place because we understand that since LeBron had Uninterrupted or whatever the hell it was called, he’s been about control. He’s been about making sure that things are his way. Us as the media members know it because of how his behavior has changed since he’s had his own media outlet in terms of how he treats the media.”
Whether McAfee negotiated with or even paid James for the appearance is somewhat beside the point here. Rather, despite his praise for McAfee landing the interview, it was somewhat wild to hear Smith speculate about the methods his fellow ESPN star used to do so.
4. Smith insists his boxing skills have improved
One of the stranger aspects in all of this has been Smith’s claim that he would have “swung” on James immediately had the Los Angeles Lakers star put his hands on him during their on-court confrontation earlier this month. And while James responded by posting an old video of Smith’s boxing skills, the ESPN star insists his skills have since improved.
“He puts out some some page about me boxing and all of this other stuff from a decade ago with two torn rotator cuffs. Fine. No problem. It’s a very very embarrassing video, I’m the first to say,” Smith said. Even though I like it to be left up there because if people think I want to throw hands like that that’s how I throw hands, knock yourself out. I’m good with that. I know that the man I am today is not the man that I was a decade ago physically or beyond. I can tell you that.”
We’ll take his word for it.
5. Smith thinks this is all actually about Michael Jordan
While Smith’s coverage of Bronny James might often be cited as the root reason for all of this, the former Quite Frankly host believes it’s deeper than that. On multiple occasions on Thursday, Smith seemed to imply that the real reason James has an issue with him is because he remains steadfast in his belief that Michael Jordan is the GOAT.
“My God, I have done everything but put diapers and a bib on this brother,” Smith said after running down a laundry list of praise he’s lauded on James in the past. “But it ain’t enough because one thing matters to him and one thing only and that’s him being recognized as the greatest of all time. Well you’re not in my book. That belongs to Michael Jordan.”
Smith proceeded to provide a lengthy explanation, stats and all, for why he believes Jordan is still the GOAT. So much for that conversation being over.
6. Smith alludes to Kobe Bryant, Dwyane Wade
At a certain point during his 15-minute rant, Smith insisted he wasn’t going to get personal. He did, however, make note of James’ absence at Kobe Bryant’s memorial service following his death in 2020, as well as him not being in attendance for Dwyane Wade’s Hall of Fame induction in 2023.
“I suggest that he be happy with the things that I haven’t brought up,” Smith said. “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 that James actually was at Bryant’s memorial service, but said that there was a specific reason he wasn’t shown at it. As for what that reason was, Smith said that’s up to James to share.
7. Smith makes it clear he’s not going anywhere
As his lengthy response came to an end, Smith made it clear he’s not going anywhere. In fact, he pointed out that his viral confrontation with James came on the same day he signed his new five-year, $100 million contract with ESPN.
“The day he came up to me was the day my new contract was announced,” he said. “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.”
As The Joker told Batman in The Dark Knight (2008), “I think you and I are destined to do this forever.”
Please don’t let that be the case here.