March 9, 2025 • 27 mins
Stephen A. Smith is a New York Times Bestselling Author, Executive Producer, host of ESPN's First Take, and co-host of NBA Countdown.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
Now let's get to a subject that's apparently gone viral
on social media today and it also involves yours truly.
Last night, I was in attendance at the Knicks Lakers game,
or sitting courtside where during a time out, I believe
it was in the third quarter, I was confronted by
none other than Lebron James himself. Lebron had some choice
(00:24):
words for me in regards to comments I've made prior
about him in regards to his son, Bronnie James. Before
I get any further, let me just put to bed
a couple of things that have been reported that are false.
People was talking about Lebron called me out my name
(00:47):
or somebody else saw. Somebody said he called me a bit,
somebody said he called me a punk, and all this
none of that is true. He was fiery. He approached
me during the game and he said, stop effing with
my son. That's my FFing son. Stop effing with my son.
(01:10):
I said, but nah, nah, nah man, straight up man,
the man real talk stop efing with my son. And
I saw how furious he was, and I said, we
can talked about nah that f that, stop effing with
my son. That's my son, that's my son. I said,
(01:32):
all right, fine, and he walked away. That's all he said.
I knew what he was talking about. I've spoken about
this before. Matter of fact, I heard that not many,
not all, but a few players were upset at me
about that. I think one Perilla player in particular was
(01:56):
Draymond Green, who I haven't spoken to since and has
no desire to speak to me, primarily because of this,
I suppose. And I found out the way that I
found out, which was last night while I was at
the game. I was a guest of Ari Emmanuel, owner
of William Morris Endeavor found of William Morrison devor rather
(02:19):
found of Endeavor, I'm sorry, before they merged with William Morris,
and I was a guest of his, sitting at the
game with him and Larry David from Curb Your Enthusiasm.
I was sitting courtside and the next thing, you know,
out of the blue, Lebron came in my face. Obviously,
(02:41):
since he brought up his son, he was piggybacking off
of what I had said weeks ago. And what I
had said weeks ago is that when Ronnie James was
struggling and I threw out some stats and stuff like that.
I said, he's not ready. And then I came on
(03:03):
this podcast and I reiterated that point. Clearly. It was
something that was on Lebron James mind that he was
aching to confront me about, and so it happened the
way that it happened. Now, before I get into anything else,
let me say that Lebron's agent, who is Rich Paul
(03:28):
his boy, has my number. Maverick Carter, who's universally respected
and is a big player in the industry these days,
he has my number. It's very easy for Lebron James
(03:51):
to have called me. It's very easy for one of
them to have called me and to say Lebron wants
to see he wants to talk to you face to
face man, the man. That's not what happened last night
at the Lakers game. Happened. Now, I get and people
have said to me today that I'm looking pretty damn sad.
(04:15):
I'll fess up I am, because something like that is
not something that should make any of us comfortable. I
didn't anticipate it. I don't know why I didn't anticipate it,
but I'm not here to blame Lebron James. That wasn't
(04:36):
a basketball player talking to me last night. That was
a dad. He rolled up on me as a father.
That's what he did. That was not a basketball player
talking to me. We talk about Lebron James all the time,
practically everybody does. That's not what Lebron James does. So
(04:58):
for him to confront me, obviously, it was something that
he was incredibly passionate about, put off about, and felt
necessary to confront me about. And what better motivation could
there be than to be protective of his son. I
understand it. I respect it as a parent. I'm a
(05:21):
father two daughters, and in all honesty, I couldn't definitively
tell you that if I were Lebron James, I would
not have done the same thing. I would hope that
I would not have. I would hope that I would
have picked up the phone and caught the person instead,
or got arranged to see that person face to face instead,
rather than walking up to me in the middle of
(05:41):
a game courtside. That was not the end of the game,
that was not the beginning game. That was in the
middle of the game that this happened. But that's what happened,
and there's really not much you can do about it.
I have a lot to say about it, but I
wanted to address a couple of things. Number One, because
(06:03):
I saw this tweet from Kevin Love he was responding
to my tweet. My tweet was I had no intentions
of talking about it. And the reason I had no
intentions of talking about it is because that's what men do.
You handle it privately if you can. I didn't want
(06:26):
to address it as I tweeted here. I wouldn't have
either had it not gone viral. But it did go
on viral because when I got up, my social media
person informed me that it was over fifteen million views
and it had gone viral. It was number one. It
was the number one sports story going. And regardless of
(06:47):
everybody wanting to walk around acting like they don't have bosses,
I don't deny the fact that I have bosses. I
worked for ESPN, and ESPN called me this morning, said,
what you mean you ain't talking about it? You most
certainly have to talk about it. This directly involves you
and Lebron James is the biggest story in the country
right now in sports. There's no way for you to
escape it. Talk about it. You got your platform. Do
(07:10):
what you gotta do. I said, fine, Well, when I
tweeted out to let everybody know that I will be
talking about it, Kevin Love, Lebron's former teammate in Cleveland,
throws out this tweet. You have no choice laugh out
loud because it went viral, laughs out loud. You didn't
(07:30):
want to have to laugh out loud. You wouldn't have.
You wouldn't have laugh out loud. Hold that tweet up.
Let's go over the list. And I like Kevin Love.
I'm very fond of him, right, I have nothing negative
to say. I have no choice because of what I
just told you about my boss is Kevin, because it
(07:53):
went viral. Kevin, which I just explained, I didn't want to.
Why would I want to. I take no pleasure in
something like this, And I guess it's the implication that
and I wouldn't have, you know, laugh out loud on
all of those things. You see, stuff like that dilutes
(08:14):
the seriousness of the discussion. So let me explain this
to Kevin Love in simplest terms. First Take has been
the number one morning show for thirteen consecutive years and
on this particular morning. It's the day after I was
in the news for a lucrative contract extension. So if
(08:39):
I said that I didn't have any intentions of doing it,
I don't have to lie, and I'm not starving for ratings.
And respectfully, Kevin, you should know that I mean what
I say. I don't have to lie, so I'll just
leave it at that. Outside of that, feel free to
support your boy. Let me go back to me and
(09:02):
lebron James. Ladies and gentlemen. Any alluding to Bronnie James
in this is either accidental or just a reference point
to articulate me and lebron James, because I'm not here
to talk about Bronnie James. Bronnie James, by all the
counter as a wonderful kid who went into the G
(09:25):
League has been tearing it up, and I personally think
it is going to be an NBA player. You can't
root against Bronnie James. He's a great kid. I've never
met anybody that said otherwise, okay, and I'm genuinely rooting
for him. Having said that, at the time that I
was talking about him and his stats in the aftermath
(09:51):
of the Philly game, that's when things have gone Haywhy
because that's when you start hearing that a few players
don't want to talk to you, or folks felt you
crossed the line or whatever. Here's what they thought I
did that crossed the line By pointing out how he
(10:14):
was struggling. I wasn't really talking about Bronni James that much.
He's a rookie and I think that he'll just get
better and better and be in the NBA. Wasn't really
about him. It was about Lebron. And the reason why
it was about Lebron was because the heat that Bronni
(10:38):
was taking and the stories that were going viral. I
was making the point he didn't have to be in
this predicament. Three things could have happened. He could have
got drafted by Golden State. He could have got drafted
by the Boston Celtics, or he could have got drafted
(10:59):
like he did by the Lakers Open Night Opening Night,
have that moment with his dad, and then go to
the G League and Wreek hab it wreck shot, and
then come to the league after a year's experience in
the G League. If any of those things did not happen,
(11:21):
one surmised that It was because of Lebron James, in
my mind, the second greatest player who have ever played
the game of basketball, who is a basketball savant. And
if we know that his son was struggling, then he knows.
And what I was saying was I was focused on him.
(11:47):
It was other people that was focused on Brownie James.
Show that Magic Johnson quote. Please, this is Magic Johnson
at the time. Jimmy, kimme alive. It's September. If I'm Brownie,
I would tell my dad just let me play in
the G League all season so that I can develop.
He needs playing time. He doesn't need to be sitting
on the lake of bench and not playing. That's not
(12:08):
a knock against him. He's just not ready. That was
irving Magic Johnson. There were other articles that were written
as the season was progressing and people were talking and
I'm rooting for the kid, and I didn't want anything
too negative to come his way. So I'm looking at
(12:30):
Lebron James and saying, all right, you had the moment.
You don't need this because you remember, it's not just
the Lebron's greatness that we're talking about that can be
somewhat burdensome. Because when you're a son of arguably the
greatest player who has ever lived in a lot of
people's eyes, the expectations for you come with that. But
(12:53):
it wasn't even just that, It was the quotes that
was associated with Lebron James. Was Lebron James that said
his son was better than some NBA players. It was
Lebron James that told folks, don't even think about it.
You want to draft, you want to you want me
draft my son. It ain't even about the money at
this point. I'll go wherever he is for one year.
(13:16):
It was Lebron that said those things, and so everybody
knew that, and as a result, what I was saying
was pointing out, Yo, this is what it is, and
any kind of trouble he has, they're gonna pounce on
him because of the things his dad said. So the
(13:37):
one thing that I'm thankful for last night is that
when I was confronted by Lebron James about this subject matter,
he didn't give me an opportunity to say what I
know that I would have said, and that was this,
I wasn't talking really about your son. I was talking
(13:59):
about you, because you know the league, you know people.
You know, narratives ain't always created by the media. It's
created by people the media covers. So you must know
what what they were saying at the time. Nobody's been
(14:21):
talking about Bronnie now, not for months, but at the
time they were you must know, and I was saying,
that's you because of all the things that you did
to make things happen in a way that deviated from
(14:44):
a relatively merit based situation, which is the National Basketball Association.
You're Lebron James. You are underpaid. You are Lebron James.
You deserve more money than you're getting paid. You're Lebron James.
Won't give a damn how much money they paid Bronnie.
He could get it, he should get it for you, because,
damn it, you should have gotten more because of what
you've done for this league. You deserve all of this.
(15:10):
But it's not gonna stop him from getting that heat.
And when Lebron came at me the way that he did,
if it wasn't on camera, if he didn't instigate something
that people are allowed to take viral, if he had
(15:33):
spoken to me, man the man privately, I still wouldn't
have talked about it. If y'all I don't violate that trust.
I don't have private conversations and then they go public.
I don't have people talk to me off the record
and then I come on here on the record. Y'all
can talk all of that smack or y'all want to
whatever y'all they say, whoever y'all nay says are But
I got thirty years in this business. My track record
(15:54):
is proven. I don't betray trust. I don't do that.
If I have a conversation with you, it's between us.
That's the way it's going down. And if Lebron had
done that, y'all still wouldn't know about this conversation, which
obviously has people speculating because of the savant that he
is and how brilliant of a marketer he is. Some
(16:18):
would say a manipulator and all this other stuff. They
swear he knew exactly what he was doing. He knew
the cameras were rolling, he knew that somebody would find him.
It was a nationally televised game. It's Lebron James and
he's rolling up to stephen A. Smith courtsip. He had
to know that's what others are thinking. I'm not thinking
(16:38):
about that. I'm thinking about the fact that I'm incredibly
sad that it had to happen. I'm incredibly sad that
a father was looking in my face vehemently and defiantly
(17:02):
hostily telling me to stop effing with his son when
I was talking about him. That makes me sad, It
really does. But let me tell you why I'm most
(17:34):
sad because I wasn't wrong. I stand by what I reported.
I stand by what I said at that time. What
I expressed months ago is what I felt, which leads
(17:59):
us to a fall more expansive conversation, albeit a short one,
Ladies and gentlemen, I'm a professional journalist turned commentator pundit.
There's a whole bunch of people with podcasts and shows
out there who talk about the NBA. I covered the NBA.
(18:24):
There's a difference and the position that I'm in. I
don't get paid to talk to folks. I get paid
to talk about them. I don't want any enemies. My
life is good. God has blessed me. I've been very
blessed and fortunate. But I'm not here to make friends either.
(18:52):
I have a job to do. See the difference between
this show and typical show is that people do those
shows hoping to get paid. I get paid to do
those shows. It's different for me because there's years of
(19:14):
work in the industry that preceded it. I've got people
calling me Lebron shton that came up to you like that. Nah,
that's wrong. It's very young professional. No, he knows better.
This is what forget all that he did what he
felt he needed to do for himself and his family.
I have to respect that. It just doesn't make him
(19:36):
right about the facts. The fact is Lebron James is
a professional basketball player. So is his son. Lebron James
(19:57):
is a member of the Los Angeles Lakers, so is
his son. Lebron James has to get critiqued at the
discretion of the media covering him play basketball, so does
(20:18):
his son. He's a professional. This is not a conversation
about family matters. This is not a conversation about what's
going on in somebody's bedroom or somebody's backyard. This is
not a conversation about what's going on secretly. This was
(20:39):
me talking about the game of basketball. Under no circumstances
do I want to throw any negativity in the way
of Lebron James family and friends. I know a lot
of them, all wonderful, and I sincerely apologize for any
(21:02):
kind of pain or angst I caused them, not Lebron.
Lebron is a part of the job and by virtue
of the decisions that he made. So are his teammates,
(21:24):
one of them happening to be his son. Now, I
understand that that rubs a lot of people the wrong way. Okay,
when I think about somebody like Draymond Green, and I've
kept my mouth shut about this for a while, but
without getting into too many details, Draymond Green has felt
(21:46):
the need to go to other people to say how
he felt about how he feels about me, and I
got mad love for Draymond. Draymond is a good brother.
They're quite frank. I've always tried to be good too,
and this shift and his feelings about me, I got it.
(22:12):
But I'm gonna get to a bigger level. You see.
One of the reasons that I had so many great
relationships in the world of sports over the years is
because if Kats had a problem, they called me silly me.
(22:41):
I'm thinking that if you get along with people and
you talk with them, if they have an issue with you,
at least they'd call you and confront you, man the
man before something's resolved. I'm talking about Draymond here, I'm
not talking about Lebron. The reason I'm not talking about
Lebron is because, excuse my language, Len and I don't
really fuck with each other. It's been primarily been high
(23:05):
and by for more than a decade, and I'm fine
with it, and so is she, and so is he. Okay,
but that wasn't the relationship with me and Draymond. That
wasn't the relationship with me and quite a few cats.
And one of the biggest reasons that I loved the
(23:27):
kind of relationship that we had is because I always
got the impression, Yo, if they got an issue with you,
they'll call you. You talk it out as men, and if
you disagree, you part ways. Even if you part ways
not speaking to one another, or you can be agreeable,
or you can agree to disagree. It could be a
boatload of things. But the blind sidedness of it all
(23:50):
is what throws me off, because you see, if I
got a problem with somebody, I'm not hard to find.
You called me, I'm gonna pick up the phone. You
want to come, you want to see me. I'm a
rap to you, and we can hash it out and
we'll reach a resolution, or we don't. That's not what's happening,
and so it is what it is. You know. I'm
(24:18):
sorry it had to be that way. I'm sorry the
look of it all. But I was sitting courtside, mind
of my damn business, watching my next try to beat
the Lakers. I didn't know that the greatest player this
generation was going to walk in my face the way
that he did. But that's what happened. So I get it.
(24:43):
I understand it, and I want to defend Lebron on
this point. That was a dad talking to me. That
was not some basketball player that was just pissed off.
That was a father. And I'm sensitive to that because
(25:08):
I'm a dad. And if I had a son and
I felt like somebody had brought negativity to their world,
I can't say I wouldn't have reacted the way Lebron
James did. I don't think I would have, but I
don't know. I don't know, but I want to emphasize
(25:33):
I wasn't really concerned about Bronnie. I think Briannie's gonna
be an NBA player. I think he's got potential, and
what he was doing in the G League, I think
he's got a lot of promise. And I just interviewed
Genie bus Right on this podcast and she was raving
about them, and they wanted them to be a part
of the Lakers organization for a long time. That's where
it starts. I get it. I'm root for this kid.
(25:53):
I wish him nothing but the best. My issue was
with what he is going through. Nobody best knows how
to alleviate the problem at the time, and nobody had
the power at the time as well to alleviate it,
more so than Lebron James, and I was simply suggesting
(26:15):
that he alleviate that problem. I didn't know what would
be taken as I'm coming after his son, because that
is not what I was doing. That is not the
intent that I wanted to put out there. So I
get it. I'm sorry. I'm also sorry that this all
had to happen on a day my new contract extension
(26:38):
was announced, but it is what it is, So that's
all I can say about that. That's all I have
to say about that. Lebron's entitled to his feelings but
I'm also entitled to mine. I cover the sport, I
(27:01):
did not get personal. I talk about players every day.
I talk about teams every day. I talk about organizations
every day. I talk about news items every day. I
talk about it all. It's my job, and that's what
I did.
Now let's get to a subject that's apparently gone viral
on social media today and it also involves yours truly.
Last night, I was in attendance at the Knicks Lakers game,
or sitting courtside where during a time out, I believe
it was in the third quarter, I was confronted by
none other than Lebron James himself. Lebron had some choice
(00:24):
words for me in regards to comments I've made prior
about him in regards to his son, Bronnie James. Before
I get any further, let me just put to bed
a couple of things that have been reported that are false.
People was talking about Lebron called me out my name
(00:47):
or somebody else saw. Somebody said he called me a bit,
somebody said he called me a punk, and all this
none of that is true. He was fiery. He approached
me during the game and he said, stop effing with
my son. That's my FFing son. Stop effing with my son.
(01:10):
I said, but nah, nah, nah man, straight up man,
the man real talk stop efing with my son. And
I saw how furious he was, and I said, we
can talked about nah that f that, stop effing with
my son. That's my son, that's my son. I said,
(01:32):
all right, fine, and he walked away. That's all he said.
I knew what he was talking about. I've spoken about
this before. Matter of fact, I heard that not many,
not all, but a few players were upset at me
about that. I think one Perilla player in particular was
(01:56):
Draymond Green, who I haven't spoken to since and has
no desire to speak to me, primarily because of this,
I suppose. And I found out the way that I
found out, which was last night while I was at
the game. I was a guest of Ari Emmanuel, owner
of William Morris Endeavor found of William Morrison devor rather
(02:19):
found of Endeavor, I'm sorry, before they merged with William Morris,
and I was a guest of his, sitting at the
game with him and Larry David from Curb Your Enthusiasm.
I was sitting courtside and the next thing, you know,
out of the blue, Lebron came in my face. Obviously,
(02:41):
since he brought up his son, he was piggybacking off
of what I had said weeks ago. And what I
had said weeks ago is that when Ronnie James was
struggling and I threw out some stats and stuff like that.
I said, he's not ready. And then I came on
(03:03):
this podcast and I reiterated that point. Clearly. It was
something that was on Lebron James mind that he was
aching to confront me about, and so it happened the
way that it happened. Now, before I get into anything else,
let me say that Lebron's agent, who is Rich Paul
(03:28):
his boy, has my number. Maverick Carter, who's universally respected
and is a big player in the industry these days,
he has my number. It's very easy for Lebron James
(03:51):
to have called me. It's very easy for one of
them to have called me and to say Lebron wants
to see he wants to talk to you face to
face man, the man. That's not what happened last night
at the Lakers game. Happened. Now, I get and people
have said to me today that I'm looking pretty damn sad.
(04:15):
I'll fess up I am, because something like that is
not something that should make any of us comfortable. I
didn't anticipate it. I don't know why I didn't anticipate it,
but I'm not here to blame Lebron James. That wasn't
(04:36):
a basketball player talking to me last night. That was
a dad. He rolled up on me as a father.
That's what he did. That was not a basketball player
talking to me. We talk about Lebron James all the time,
practically everybody does. That's not what Lebron James does. So
(04:58):
for him to confront me, obviously, it was something that
he was incredibly passionate about, put off about, and felt
necessary to confront me about. And what better motivation could
there be than to be protective of his son. I
understand it. I respect it as a parent. I'm a
(05:21):
father two daughters, and in all honesty, I couldn't definitively
tell you that if I were Lebron James, I would
not have done the same thing. I would hope that
I would not have. I would hope that I would
have picked up the phone and caught the person instead,
or got arranged to see that person face to face instead,
rather than walking up to me in the middle of
(05:41):
a game courtside. That was not the end of the game,
that was not the beginning game. That was in the
middle of the game that this happened. But that's what happened,
and there's really not much you can do about it.
I have a lot to say about it, but I
wanted to address a couple of things. Number One, because
(06:03):
I saw this tweet from Kevin Love he was responding
to my tweet. My tweet was I had no intentions
of talking about it. And the reason I had no
intentions of talking about it is because that's what men do.
You handle it privately if you can. I didn't want
(06:26):
to address it as I tweeted here. I wouldn't have
either had it not gone viral. But it did go
on viral because when I got up, my social media
person informed me that it was over fifteen million views
and it had gone viral. It was number one. It
was the number one sports story going. And regardless of
(06:47):
everybody wanting to walk around acting like they don't have bosses,
I don't deny the fact that I have bosses. I
worked for ESPN, and ESPN called me this morning, said,
what you mean you ain't talking about it? You most
certainly have to talk about it. This directly involves you
and Lebron James is the biggest story in the country
right now in sports. There's no way for you to
escape it. Talk about it. You got your platform. Do
(07:10):
what you gotta do. I said, fine, Well, when I
tweeted out to let everybody know that I will be
talking about it, Kevin Love, Lebron's former teammate in Cleveland,
throws out this tweet. You have no choice laugh out
loud because it went viral, laughs out loud. You didn't
(07:30):
want to have to laugh out loud. You wouldn't have.
You wouldn't have laugh out loud. Hold that tweet up.
Let's go over the list. And I like Kevin Love.
I'm very fond of him, right, I have nothing negative
to say. I have no choice because of what I
just told you about my boss is Kevin, because it
(07:53):
went viral. Kevin, which I just explained, I didn't want to.
Why would I want to. I take no pleasure in
something like this, And I guess it's the implication that
and I wouldn't have, you know, laugh out loud on
all of those things. You see, stuff like that dilutes
(08:14):
the seriousness of the discussion. So let me explain this
to Kevin Love in simplest terms. First Take has been
the number one morning show for thirteen consecutive years and
on this particular morning. It's the day after I was
in the news for a lucrative contract extension. So if
(08:39):
I said that I didn't have any intentions of doing it,
I don't have to lie, and I'm not starving for ratings.
And respectfully, Kevin, you should know that I mean what
I say. I don't have to lie, so I'll just
leave it at that. Outside of that, feel free to
support your boy. Let me go back to me and
(09:02):
lebron James. Ladies and gentlemen. Any alluding to Bronnie James
in this is either accidental or just a reference point
to articulate me and lebron James, because I'm not here
to talk about Bronnie James. Bronnie James, by all the
counter as a wonderful kid who went into the G
(09:25):
League has been tearing it up, and I personally think
it is going to be an NBA player. You can't
root against Bronnie James. He's a great kid. I've never
met anybody that said otherwise, okay, and I'm genuinely rooting
for him. Having said that, at the time that I
was talking about him and his stats in the aftermath
(09:51):
of the Philly game, that's when things have gone Haywhy
because that's when you start hearing that a few players
don't want to talk to you, or folks felt you
crossed the line or whatever. Here's what they thought I
did that crossed the line By pointing out how he
(10:14):
was struggling. I wasn't really talking about Bronni James that much.
He's a rookie and I think that he'll just get
better and better and be in the NBA. Wasn't really
about him. It was about Lebron. And the reason why
it was about Lebron was because the heat that Bronni
(10:38):
was taking and the stories that were going viral. I
was making the point he didn't have to be in
this predicament. Three things could have happened. He could have
got drafted by Golden State. He could have got drafted
by the Boston Celtics, or he could have got drafted
(10:59):
like he did by the Lakers Open Night Opening Night,
have that moment with his dad, and then go to
the G League and Wreek hab it wreck shot, and
then come to the league after a year's experience in
the G League. If any of those things did not happen,
(11:21):
one surmised that It was because of Lebron James, in
my mind, the second greatest player who have ever played
the game of basketball, who is a basketball savant. And
if we know that his son was struggling, then he knows.
And what I was saying was I was focused on him.
(11:47):
It was other people that was focused on Brownie James.
Show that Magic Johnson quote. Please, this is Magic Johnson
at the time. Jimmy, kimme alive. It's September. If I'm Brownie,
I would tell my dad just let me play in
the G League all season so that I can develop.
He needs playing time. He doesn't need to be sitting
on the lake of bench and not playing. That's not
(12:08):
a knock against him. He's just not ready. That was
irving Magic Johnson. There were other articles that were written
as the season was progressing and people were talking and
I'm rooting for the kid, and I didn't want anything
too negative to come his way. So I'm looking at
(12:30):
Lebron James and saying, all right, you had the moment.
You don't need this because you remember, it's not just
the Lebron's greatness that we're talking about that can be
somewhat burdensome. Because when you're a son of arguably the
greatest player who has ever lived in a lot of
people's eyes, the expectations for you come with that. But
(12:53):
it wasn't even just that, It was the quotes that
was associated with Lebron James. Was Lebron James that said
his son was better than some NBA players. It was
Lebron James that told folks, don't even think about it.
You want to draft, you want to you want me
draft my son. It ain't even about the money at
this point. I'll go wherever he is for one year.
(13:16):
It was Lebron that said those things, and so everybody
knew that, and as a result, what I was saying
was pointing out, Yo, this is what it is, and
any kind of trouble he has, they're gonna pounce on
him because of the things his dad said. So the
(13:37):
one thing that I'm thankful for last night is that
when I was confronted by Lebron James about this subject matter,
he didn't give me an opportunity to say what I
know that I would have said, and that was this,
I wasn't talking really about your son. I was talking
(13:59):
about you, because you know the league, you know people.
You know, narratives ain't always created by the media. It's
created by people the media covers. So you must know
what what they were saying at the time. Nobody's been
(14:21):
talking about Bronnie now, not for months, but at the
time they were you must know, and I was saying,
that's you because of all the things that you did
to make things happen in a way that deviated from
(14:44):
a relatively merit based situation, which is the National Basketball Association.
You're Lebron James. You are underpaid. You are Lebron James.
You deserve more money than you're getting paid. You're Lebron James.
Won't give a damn how much money they paid Bronnie.
He could get it, he should get it for you, because,
damn it, you should have gotten more because of what
you've done for this league. You deserve all of this.
(15:10):
But it's not gonna stop him from getting that heat.
And when Lebron came at me the way that he did,
if it wasn't on camera, if he didn't instigate something
that people are allowed to take viral, if he had
(15:33):
spoken to me, man the man privately, I still wouldn't
have talked about it. If y'all I don't violate that trust.
I don't have private conversations and then they go public.
I don't have people talk to me off the record
and then I come on here on the record. Y'all
can talk all of that smack or y'all want to
whatever y'all they say, whoever y'all nay says are But
I got thirty years in this business. My track record
(15:54):
is proven. I don't betray trust. I don't do that.
If I have a conversation with you, it's between us.
That's the way it's going down. And if Lebron had
done that, y'all still wouldn't know about this conversation, which
obviously has people speculating because of the savant that he
is and how brilliant of a marketer he is. Some
(16:18):
would say a manipulator and all this other stuff. They
swear he knew exactly what he was doing. He knew
the cameras were rolling, he knew that somebody would find him.
It was a nationally televised game. It's Lebron James and
he's rolling up to stephen A. Smith courtsip. He had
to know that's what others are thinking. I'm not thinking
(16:38):
about that. I'm thinking about the fact that I'm incredibly
sad that it had to happen. I'm incredibly sad that
a father was looking in my face vehemently and defiantly
(17:02):
hostily telling me to stop effing with his son when
I was talking about him. That makes me sad, It
really does. But let me tell you why I'm most
(17:34):
sad because I wasn't wrong. I stand by what I reported.
I stand by what I said at that time. What
I expressed months ago is what I felt, which leads
(17:59):
us to a fall more expansive conversation, albeit a short one,
Ladies and gentlemen, I'm a professional journalist turned commentator pundit.
There's a whole bunch of people with podcasts and shows
out there who talk about the NBA. I covered the NBA.
(18:24):
There's a difference and the position that I'm in. I
don't get paid to talk to folks. I get paid
to talk about them. I don't want any enemies. My
life is good. God has blessed me. I've been very
blessed and fortunate. But I'm not here to make friends either.
(18:52):
I have a job to do. See the difference between
this show and typical show is that people do those
shows hoping to get paid. I get paid to do
those shows. It's different for me because there's years of
(19:14):
work in the industry that preceded it. I've got people
calling me Lebron shton that came up to you like that. Nah,
that's wrong. It's very young professional. No, he knows better.
This is what forget all that he did what he
felt he needed to do for himself and his family.
I have to respect that. It just doesn't make him
(19:36):
right about the facts. The fact is Lebron James is
a professional basketball player. So is his son. Lebron James
(19:57):
is a member of the Los Angeles Lakers, so is
his son. Lebron James has to get critiqued at the
discretion of the media covering him play basketball, so does
(20:18):
his son. He's a professional. This is not a conversation
about family matters. This is not a conversation about what's
going on in somebody's bedroom or somebody's backyard. This is
not a conversation about what's going on secretly. This was
(20:39):
me talking about the game of basketball. Under no circumstances
do I want to throw any negativity in the way
of Lebron James family and friends. I know a lot
of them, all wonderful, and I sincerely apologize for any
(21:02):
kind of pain or angst I caused them, not Lebron.
Lebron is a part of the job and by virtue
of the decisions that he made. So are his teammates,
(21:24):
one of them happening to be his son. Now, I
understand that that rubs a lot of people the wrong way. Okay,
when I think about somebody like Draymond Green, and I've
kept my mouth shut about this for a while, but
without getting into too many details, Draymond Green has felt
(21:46):
the need to go to other people to say how
he felt about how he feels about me, and I
got mad love for Draymond. Draymond is a good brother.
They're quite frank. I've always tried to be good too,
and this shift and his feelings about me, I got it.
(22:12):
But I'm gonna get to a bigger level. You see.
One of the reasons that I had so many great
relationships in the world of sports over the years is
because if Kats had a problem, they called me silly me.
(22:41):
I'm thinking that if you get along with people and
you talk with them, if they have an issue with you,
at least they'd call you and confront you, man the
man before something's resolved. I'm talking about Draymond here, I'm
not talking about Lebron. The reason I'm not talking about
Lebron is because, excuse my language, Len and I don't
really fuck with each other. It's been primarily been high
(23:05):
and by for more than a decade, and I'm fine
with it, and so is she, and so is he. Okay,
but that wasn't the relationship with me and Draymond. That
wasn't the relationship with me and quite a few cats.
And one of the biggest reasons that I loved the
(23:27):
kind of relationship that we had is because I always
got the impression, Yo, if they got an issue with you,
they'll call you. You talk it out as men, and if
you disagree, you part ways. Even if you part ways
not speaking to one another, or you can be agreeable,
or you can agree to disagree. It could be a
boatload of things. But the blind sidedness of it all
(23:50):
is what throws me off, because you see, if I
got a problem with somebody, I'm not hard to find.
You called me, I'm gonna pick up the phone. You
want to come, you want to see me. I'm a
rap to you, and we can hash it out and
we'll reach a resolution, or we don't. That's not what's happening,
and so it is what it is. You know. I'm
(24:18):
sorry it had to be that way. I'm sorry the
look of it all. But I was sitting courtside, mind
of my damn business, watching my next try to beat
the Lakers. I didn't know that the greatest player this
generation was going to walk in my face the way
that he did. But that's what happened. So I get it.
(24:43):
I understand it, and I want to defend Lebron on
this point. That was a dad talking to me. That
was not some basketball player that was just pissed off.
That was a father. And I'm sensitive to that because
(25:08):
I'm a dad. And if I had a son and
I felt like somebody had brought negativity to their world,
I can't say I wouldn't have reacted the way Lebron
James did. I don't think I would have, but I
don't know. I don't know, but I want to emphasize
(25:33):
I wasn't really concerned about Bronnie. I think Briannie's gonna
be an NBA player. I think he's got potential, and
what he was doing in the G League, I think
he's got a lot of promise. And I just interviewed
Genie bus Right on this podcast and she was raving
about them, and they wanted them to be a part
of the Lakers organization for a long time. That's where
it starts. I get it. I'm root for this kid.
(25:53):
I wish him nothing but the best. My issue was
with what he is going through. Nobody best knows how
to alleviate the problem at the time, and nobody had
the power at the time as well to alleviate it,
more so than Lebron James, and I was simply suggesting
(26:15):
that he alleviate that problem. I didn't know what would
be taken as I'm coming after his son, because that
is not what I was doing. That is not the
intent that I wanted to put out there. So I
get it. I'm sorry. I'm also sorry that this all
had to happen on a day my new contract extension
(26:38):
was announced, but it is what it is, So that's
all I can say about that. That's all I have
to say about that. Lebron's entitled to his feelings but
I'm also entitled to mine. I cover the sport, I
(27:01):
did not get personal. I talk about players every day.
I talk about teams every day. I talk about organizations
every day. I talk about news items every day. I
talk about it all. It's my job, and that's what
I did.
Host
Stephen A. Smith
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