It’s been months now since Los Angeles Lakers forward LeBron James confronted ESPN’s Stephen A. Smith during a regular-season contest between the Lakers and New York Knicks on March 6. Allegedly, James told Smith to watch his mouth when it comes to James’ son Bronny.
Smith has had plenty of time to move past the incident, but it doesn’t seem as if he and the elder James are going to break bread anytime soon and settle their differences. The sports television star told Rolling Stone about his relationship with the elder James recently and admitted that the two simply don’t like one another.
“I have nothing to say about that,” Smith said when asked what’s going on between him and the elder James. “I don’t like him, and he don’t like me. 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.”
The 57-year-old claimed in light of his viral interaction with the elder James that he couldn’t repeat what the four-time NBA champion had to say to him over FCC airwaves. He also said that the elder James didn’t confront him as a basketball player but as a parent.
The reason why the elder James confronted Smith in the first place can perhaps be traced back to what Smith had to say about the younger James’ performance in a contest against the Philadelphia 76ers on Jan. 28. The younger James scored zero points and missed all five of his shot attempts from the floor in that game, and Smith told the elder James “as a father” to “stop this.”
Smith has argued that the confrontation in March wasn’t really about the younger James. The elder James has argued that Smith missed the “whole point.”
Considering Smith’s admission to Rolling Stone, maybe he took some pleasure in the fact that the elder James’ Lakers underperformed in the 2025 NBA Playoffs. Los Angeles got knocked out in the opening round of the playoffs despite being a top-three seed in the Western Conference.
With the elder James’ NBA career seemingly set to continue for at least another season, maybe another chapter in the beef between the elder James and Smith will unfold in the 2025-26 campaign. The elder James has 22 NBA seasons under his belt and is on track to set a new league record by making it 23 next season.