While making a recent appearance on ‘The Pat McAfee Show,' Los Angeles Lakers superstar LeBron James made headlines for numerous reasons, possibly the biggest being a comment he made about NBA insider Brian Windhorst.
James spoke candidly about several topics, including his true feelings about Windhorst, who has covered James extensively over the past 25 years. While talking about Windhorst, James said, “This guy says he's like my f–king best friend. These guys are just weird.”
Unsurprisingly, Tim McMahon, Windhorst's ESPN colleague and podcast co-host, came to Windhorst's defense.
“Not one single time have I ever heard you say that you were friends, much less best friends with LeBron James,” McMahon told Windhorst on ‘The Hoop Collective. ‘ “I don’t know if LeBron knows this podcaster named JJ Redick, I think he’s coaching the Los Angeles Lakers. I’d bet you LeBron sees him all the time actually, now that I think about it. Well, there’s this time that you went on JJ Redick’s podcast last year, and I was tuning in, and I was like, ‘Wow this is really interesting.' I heard you on that podcast say, ‘I don’t think LeBron James likes me.' You weren’t complaining, you were just simply stating fact because sometimes when you cover people and you don’t just kiss their butt regardless of circumstances and you cover them honestly, fair and accurately — but it might not be flattering — sometimes people get mad at you.”
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Windhorst and James graduated from the same high school, St. Vincent-St. Mary in Akron, Ohio, although Windhorst graduated several years before James. While James was playing in high school, garnering national media attention in the process, Windhorst began covering the budding star.
Since then, Windhorst has covered James throughout his career. When James played for the Cavaliers from 2003 to 2010, Windhorst worked for the Akron Beacon Journal and then The Plain Dealer in Cleveland before joining ESPN when James left the Cavaliers for the Miami Heat in 2010.
While Windhorst may not claim to be James's friend, he recently claimed that James elected to sign with Nike out of high school because he idolized Michael Jordan, to which the Lakers star apparently took offense.
“He went on his show and said ‘Don’t let LeBron fool you, he wears No. 23 because of Michael Jordan.' OK, that’s a fact. ‘He signed with Nike because of Michael Jordan.' It’s like, no the f–k I didn’t. I signed with Nike because I got a hell of a signing bonus, and they gave me a seven-year, $90 million contract. And I moved my mom out of the hood the day after I signed that contract. And ultimately, my whole thing is like, what do I want to wear off the court? I wanna wear f–king Nikes.”