{"id":145535,"date":"2025-06-19T11:39:26","date_gmt":"2025-06-19T15:39:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/?p=145535"},"modified":"2025-06-19T11:39:26","modified_gmt":"2025-06-19T15:39:26","slug":"stephen-a-smith-brutally-honest-lebron-james","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2025\/06\/19\/stephen-a-smith-brutally-honest-lebron-james\/","title":{"rendered":"Stephen A. Smith Gets Brutally Honest on LeBron James"},"content":{"rendered":"

The relationship between LeBron James<\/a> and Stephen A. Smith hasn’t been very friendly in recent months. Months after their viral confrontation in March during the Lakers-Knicks match, the ESPN analyst has finally come up with an honest revelation. The Los Angeles Lakers star had approached Smith courtside over the sports personality\u2019s comments on Bronny James<\/a>. The occurrence soon went viral, highlighting intense tension between the two. Now, months later, Smith has revealed his relationship with the legendary player remains strained.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Stephen A. Smith Gets Brutally Honest on LeBron James<\/b><\/h2>\n
\"\"<\/a>
Apr 30, 2025; Los Angeles, California, USA; Los Angeles Lakers forward LeBron James (23) brings the ball up court against the Minnesota Timberwolves during the first half in game five of first round for the 2025 NBA Playoffs at Crypto.com Arena. Mandatory Credit: Gary A. Vasquez-Imagn Images<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Stephen A. Smith has admitted that he and James don’t like each other. Additionally, the two will never like each other. During an interview with Danyel Smith at <\/span>The Rolling Stone<\/span><\/a>, Smith said, \u201cI don’t like him, and he don’t like me.\u201d <\/span>However, the NBA analyst acknowledged that he is \u201cgoing to show him that respect\u201d for being \u201cone of the greatest players who’s ever lived.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Smith continued by saying that he is going to \u201capplaud\u201d LeBron when the player does \u201cgreat\u201d and \u201cwhen he doesn’t do great, I\u2019m not gonna applaud.\u201d The 57-year-old went on to mention his son again by saying, \u201cHe hid behind his son, tried to make something out of nothing as if I was dogging his son, which I was not.\u201d Smith further said that \u201cthe real issue was we don’t like each other. And he used that as an excuse to confront me. I got it.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Smith and LeBron have an extensive history. While it’s clear they don’t like each other, hopefully, Smith can remain professional when covering James.<\/p>\n

The History Between Stephen A. Smith and LeBron<\/h3>\n

The reference takes us back to their intense confrontation mentioned above, which happened during the Lakers-Knicks game<\/a> on March 6. LeBron allegedly asked Smith, \u201cKeep my son out of this s*it.\u201d It seems that the incident remains relevant to the ESPN analyst, as he has mentioned that occurrence months later. Smith has also made it clear that the feud between the two isn’t just a trivial rivalry, but much more than that. \u201cWe’re never gonna like each other.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Smith, during the aforementioned interview, stated that he is going to treat LeBron \u201cjust like any other player I cover.\u201d Additionally, nothing can stop him from his \u201cprofessional integrity.\u201d It seems like the situation between the two isn’t likely to change. \u201cI don’t have to like you to be fair to you,\u201d Smith told The Rolling Stones.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

LeBron<\/span> recently pointed out that he isn’t a fan of ring culture<\/a>. During the latest episode of the <\/span>Mind the Game podcast<\/span><\/a>, the Lakers forward argued that \u201ca ring is a team achievement.\u201d He also mentioned players like Allen Iverson<\/a>, Charles Barkley<\/a>, and Steve Nash<\/a>, who never won a championship, should be considered in the list of all-time greats. The four-time NBA Champion highlighted that greatness goes beyond winning the titles. However, Smith believes it contradicted his previous actions when he left Cleveland for Miami.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Smith, during his recent appearance on <\/span>First Take, questioned LeBron<\/span><\/a>, \u201cIf [winning a championship] didn\u2019t mean much or shouldn\u2019t mean much \u2026 Why were you so relieved to finally have one? Why did you depart Cleveland to go to Miami?\u201d The NBA pundit additionally stated that James left Cleveland for Miami to form an exceptional team with players like Dwyane Wade<\/a> and Chris Bosh<\/a>. It is to be seen how the four-time NBA Finals MVP responds to these comments.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The Last Word<\/h3>\n

Amid all these conversations and the feud with Smith, James continues to recover from a knee injury ahead of the upcoming season. LeBron is preparing for a historic 23rd season and is still playing at an elite level. Regardless of your opinion of LeBron, his greatness is undeniable.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Featured image: \u00a9 Gary A. Vasquez-Imagn Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The relationship between LeBron James and Stephen A. Smith hasn’t been very friendly in recent months. Months after their viral confrontation in March during the Lakers-Knicks match, the ESPN analyst has finally come up with an honest revelation. The Los Angeles Lakers star had approached Smith courtside over the sports personality\u2019s comments on Bronny James. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5569,"featured_media":145592,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"1","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1608,26,62,3],"tags":[4572,38,3836],"class_list":["post-145535","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-basketball","category-lakers","category-nba","category-news","tag-bronny-james","tag-lebron-james","tag-stephen-a-smith"],"modified_by":"Eamon Cassels, Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145535","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5569"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=145535"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145535\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":145593,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145535\/revisions\/145593"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/145592"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=145535"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=145535"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=145535"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}