LeBron James ‘hid behind his son’ in our messy feud
Stephen A. Smith still has some words for LeBron James after their courtside dispute in March.
In case you thought there was a chance that the two could make up — that’s highly unlikely.
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“I don’t like him, and he don’t like me,” Smith said in Q&A with Rolling Stone’s Danyel Smith that was published Wednesday. “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.”
But while the ESPN star says he’ll do his job without letting their dislike for each other get in the way, he still has issues with how James confronted him at the Lakers’ March 6 game against the Knicks.
“He hid behind his son, tried to make something out of nothing, as if I was dogging his son, which I was not,” Smith said. “The real issue was we don’t like each other. And he used that as an excuse to confront me. I got it.”
In a viral moment, James challenged Smith on the sidelines of the game after Smith had pleaded in an episode of “First Take” for James to step in “as a father” and stop the Lakers from giving Bronny James any playing time after Los Angeles drafted him with the 55th pick in the NBA draft.
“That wasn’t a basketball player confronting me. That was a parent. That was a father,” Smith said initially after the incident. “And I can’t sit here and be angry, or feel slighted by LeBron James and any way in that regard. By all accounts, he’s obviously a wonderful family man and a wonderful father who cares very, very deeply about his son.”
But Smith has seemingly gotten more upset over the incident as time has passed.
James said later on in March that Smith missed the point of their conversation.
“Never would I ever not allow people to talk about the sport, criticize players about what they do on the court,” James said on “The Pat McAfee Show.” “
“But 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.”
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