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A feud between LeBron James and ESPN's Stephen A. Smith has seemingly been ongoing for years. However, the famed sports analyst recently opened up and revealed his true feelings toward the Los Angeles Lakers star.
In an interview with Danyel Smith at the Rolling Stone, the 57-year-old sports analyst admits that he does not like LeBron James, and that the future Hall of Famer feels the same way about him. Smith mentions how it's seemingly been like that for a while, and the on-court incident during the regular season was just two people not liking each other.
“I don't like him, and he don't like me,” Smith said about LeBron James. “He's one of the greatest players who's ever lived. I'm going to show him that respect, and I'm going to cover him objectively. When he does great, I'm gonna applaud. When he doesn't do great, I'm not gonna applaud. He hid behind his son, tried to make something out of nothing, as if I was dogging his son, which I was not. The real issue was we don't like each other. And he used that as an excuse to confront me. I got it.”
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The incident Stephen A. Smith is referencing was in a March 6 game between the Lakers and the New York Knicks that ended in L.A.'s favor 113-109. LeBron James approached Smith during the break between the third and fourth quarters and allegedly told the ESPN analyst to “Keep my son out of this s***.”
Roughly four months later, Stephen A. Smith is still talking about it. It's not every day that a sports analyst openly admits his disdain toward a professional athlete. But the beef between him and the 40-year-old forward is seemingly real.
LeBron James isn't the only NBA player who may have beef with the ESPN analyst. Stephen A. Smith recently got in a spat with Memphis Grizzlies star Ja Morant. And there have been instances on social media of Kevin Durant calling him out as well.
