Let me transition to a serious topic, because I want to put an end once and for all to this discussion about yours truly and Lebron James. The light of what happened last week, Dwayne Wade to came Melo Anthony, both of whom know Lebron very well, wade in on the situation between me and Lebron when Lebron rolled up on me court side last week of the Lakers game. They weighed in on the situation on Melo's podcast seven PM in Brooklyn. Check out what the fellas had to say. Please check it.
Look at this.
It's dual size once again.
You know what I mean.
I think you understand both sides, if you're that person who wants to understand both sides. I told him, as a father, I'm walking up on you, right. I get it because I'm like that too, like I'm at you, of course, but also you know what I told him, I said, And I think we've never seen Lebron do that, like even we've never seen like Lebron don't even go back at players that found him too hard on the court.
We've never seen him be like he's always been just even killed and level head in every aspect of you. Sometimes you want him to jump, sometimes you want him to go and he won't. And so to watch him, to watch the clip and watch him on that bench and see Stephen Ay over there. He was just he couldn't take it.
He couldn't take it. I mean, not that he could not stand there.
They got the membo though, ste come, he comes to the game tonight because he knew because he saw saw a one up, you know what I mean.
It just it was burning them.
But you know, I told him, I said, you know, Stephen, I think the one thing is and first of all, I take it that that's a sign of respect that Lebron did that to you, you know what I mean. I know he understands that, and that's all him I saying. And that's the thing. Your your microphone is the loudest, your platform is the biggest. And also you're a black man.
Yeah, And I.
Said, you know, I mean, so you got to understand, you know where he's coming from with that if he even approached you, because yes, the Skip Bayless of the world and all these guys, I've said things about him his entire career and he's been above it.
There is a fine line of I am a father, but you can't separate the fact that he is your teammate as well. You you know what I'm saying, and he's in this league to be critique critique. I just think this has been a build up. We're talking twenty two years like this ain't got nothing to do with Bronnie. It's just the fact that Bronnie is a part of the conversation now. And he also got to protect his See you know what I'm saying, y'all, you gotta protect the kingdom no matter how old it is.
He's Bronnie, that's my dad. So bron got to protect that.
But there's also energy with that with those two and that those cruise is just as from.
Over the years of just build up, y'all.
This ain't no love relationship that we talked, This relationship that we talking about, these.
Don't have a friendship, right, So this is this is it is.
What it is in the sense right, just just Stephen A doing what he's supposed to do over the years, Bronnie doing bron doing what he doing over the years, and this is what happens.
Some ship might get mister strued.
I might not like what you said, I might not with you.
I ain't gonna deal with you.
But the fact that I think the energy is because we're dealing with two juggernauts in their respective feels right, Bron being who he is, stephen A being who he is. A lot of people don't know that history between those two. The only thing people know is what Steven they may
say or what he may not say. Bron has never spoken on any situation with Stephen N. So if I'm sitting there for twenty plus years and I'm just taking all of this information and all the shit that you've said to me is about me over the years, now my son is the trigger.
I'm gonna drop the mic on all of this right now, once and for all. Were gonna put this shit to bed. I want to think Dwayne Wade and Carmelo Anthony for saying what they said. Some of the details were missed, like, for example, he didn't see me, you know, warm up, because I didn't get there till a few minutes into the first quarter. But when you sit in courtside, they kind of know who's gonna be there. And I'm quite sure he was alerted I was gonna be there, but
that's neither here nor there. D Wade told one thousand percent truth when he said what he texts me and said to me, because we do have a relationship.
I love that brother.
That's my dog, and I feel the same way about Carmelo Anthey, we all go back years and I love them both. So I really appreciated the conversation that they had, and I appreciate the perspective that they both provided because for the most part, it was pretty spot on a couple of things that need to be noted. Like Mello said, it's been stewing for years. See what I've gotten pissed about with this particular subject is that too many people are not touching on the truth Melo and d Wade did.
Me and Lebron don't have a relationship. Lebron don't mess with me, and I don't mess with him. I respect the hell out of him. He's number two on the list all time, and I didn't always feel this way about him.
There are times I didn't like how he treated black media.
I'm not talking about myself because I'm on a certain level and I watched how others.
Got treated and I didn't like that.
But it didn't take away from his unquestionable greatness, his deified status that he has earned as one of the top two or three greatest players in the history of basketball, and I never deviate from that.
I've always been coming to his family.
I think his wife is the first lady of the NBA class personified. I think his mom is an absolute wonderful woman. I don't have to talk to Randy much. That's a good brother. Rich Paul and me are pretty damn cool. Riches good people, so I'm cool with mav as well and various other people. But me and Lebron, we don't roll like that Hi and BA. He ain't had much use for me, and I damn sure don't
have much use for him. And that shit was cemented when he did what he did the other day because you rolled up on me knowing that I wouldn't have a chance to respond unless I was willing to make a scene, which was at court side while the national televisions were rolling on the day that my new contract had been announced.
To the world.
But it doesn't stop me from being fair. It's not gonna stop me from doing my job. My issue, which is why I appreciate it. Where Mello went because Melo put it where the goats can get it.
We don't have that kind of relationship. So what the hell you use.
Your son for. I'm shitting on your son. That's not true, Bronnie James. That is not true.
To the James family.
And all your close confidence and loved ones, that is not true.
I have video.
Documentation with me refusing to cover Bronnie, never watching him out of.
Respect for the family.
Because if stephen A rolls into a gym or an arena and I see him, everyone's gonna ask for my critique of him. And I have been on the record publicly stating that's not fair to that kid because his father is one of the greatest ever and they're gonna judge him harshly, and I didn't want to be a part of it. I can look into the camera and look at Brownie James and say, factually, that is not correct. I have not been shitting on that kid at all.
That is factually incorrect. Now, de Wade says, when you were talking about him, but you really no, I really wasn't. The reason I say that is because, as Rich Paul pointed out what he said, I could have contextualized it better. It's not foreign to me that a second round pick will come into the NBA and it's not ready yet, and they'll just work hard, going to G league, come back and forth, and they'll get better, just like Kenyan Martin told me his son did when I was on
Gilsarina last week. So that's not foreign to me. I wasn't talking about him. I was talking about his father. And why was I talking about his father because not me, but the media, some publicly, many privately, literally labeled it parental abuse that he would say, my son is better than some of these dudes in the league. Right now, you want me draft my son. It ain't even about the money at this point. I want to play in the league with my son for the year. You did that, That was Lebron James.
That was not Stephen A. Smith. I did not do that.
So when he came up to me, claiming, you shitting on my son, You shitting on myself, I didn't know what he was talking about because I'm the one person who didn't. I told January twenty ninth, and even then I don't believe I did it. I pointed out how his start was very, very bad, but his performance in the G League was good.
Let him go there.
And get himself better, because you, as the dad, put him in this microscopic spotlight and you're going to jack the stuff that's going to be too much.
That's all I was saying.
So we got the Draymond Green's out out there with his damn podcast for some reason suddenly.
Forgetting my character and who I am, and he's talking about y'all. It was weaker stephen A to say that it Lebron was.
We or to bring it up as a father and oh, by the way, where I'm from, we put hands on you. You sure you should be saying that, Tremonde. Sure, I mean you sure that's the words you want to use. We should be putting hands on somebody. Has that not worked against you? Jordan Poole, nurked, Rudy Gobier. I mean, I'm just asking. I'm just asking, is that the smartest thing for you to say, particularly.
When you want to be in this business when it's all over?
Is that the smartest thing for you to say?
But you go ahead, bro, God bless you.
I understand where you're rolling now and how you're rolling.
It's cool.
I got nothing bad to say about Draymond. I still got love for Draymond. My point in all of this is I would never call out somebody as a father for stuff that's going on in the privacy of your life and your home. But I covered the NBA, and what I was talking about when it came to fatherhood was what we were seeing on an NBA basketball court.
That's my job. That's my job.
I'm supposed to ignore that while he's wearing a Lakers uniform, while he's getting money that most people wouldn't get that he deserves because Lebron, because Lebron is underpaid. I'm supposed to ignore all of this while you're in the purple and gold, while you're in an NBA uniform, while you're receiving an NBA check. When I covered the NBA, that's where I disagreed with Dwayne Wade.
When he said I'm coming at you. I'm like, ah, because of Dwayne Wade that I.
Know would have picked up when I was talking about d Wade, not his son.
Lebron tried to say I was talking about.
His son when he knew good and damn well, I was talking about him. We sit here today it's a week later, and I'm not going to talk about this anymore.
But let me say this to y'all. It's a week later. I'm not backing up from a word I said. I was right.
I was doing my job, and in the process of doing my job, I wasn't doing my job when I didn't talk about.
Him all of those years. I cover basketball. I don't just cover the NBA.
I am a sports broadcaster, which means that it was perfectly within my right to go to Sierra Canyon and cover him, to go to USC and cover him, to go to the G League if I wanted to and cover him, because I cover sports. To get on me otherwise is to get on me for doing my job. So that's where a dreamon is wrong. It's taught me
talking about father. Why did I mention father because you said my son is better to some of the dudes in the league right now before he got here, and you said you want me draft my son.
At this what it ain't about the money.
I just want to play with him for a year, that's what you said, Which is why a whole.
Bunch of people who ain't Stephen A.
Smith, who don't have my microphone, who don't have my platform was talking about him behind his back and talking about Lebron.
And what he was doing.
As a father who happens to be the greatest attraction in the game today. Mellow's right. This wasn't about Bronnie. This was an excuse that Lebron was looking for to get at me, which, by the way, would not have been a problem.
We could have met in the back.
We could have I had a man a man conversation where I had an opportunity to respond and point to him about what he did to put his son in this microscopic spotlight that I personally have tried.
To avoid for three years. But he didn't give me.
That opportunity, just like he didn't give me the opportunity when the shop was on HBO and MAV came up to me, and Rich came up to me, and they said, Yo, we want you on a shop. Hell yeah, we want you on a shop with Lebron. It'll be box office. I said, name the time and place I show up. I only got one condition, nothing gets edited out.
Nothing. Let me go.
He's so right, he's so righteous. Let's do it his show, not mine. Don't come on first saying, oh, I ain't helping his ratings. Don't come on his YouTube shorts podcast. Now, I ain't helping come on your show. We know her to help numbers at the very least, we know I could do that. Nobody was hiding crickets. Never heard from them since. And I know that ain't there for because I know Mavill put me on the heartbeat, Rich Paul and the rest of the crew.
All of them in a heartbeat.
I'd show up by my damn self, or I'd show up with my own boys, and we could all bring facts to the table. But I was never taken up on that offer. You see, I don't run and hide. If I'm wrong, I'll say I'm wrong. If I'm right, I'm right. I was never shitting on Brownie James. I wouldn't do that to the James family. I was talking about one person and one person only. We may never speak in life again. I'm fine with it. I get
paid to talk about folks, not to them. I cover the league you play, I watch, dissect, analyze, and broadcast. We ain't got to communicate. We damn sure don't have to say hello to each other. We don't have to do none of that. We don't get along. And there's a multitude of reasons why. I've alluded to some of them, but we know what the biggest reason is.
I ain't shaying a shop. It ain't goat status this way. My goat is Michael Jordan.
Thirty five thousand points eclips in the Kareem Abdujabal with over thirty eight thousand, ultimately forty thousand, now fifty thousand, another All Star appearance, another fifty point game. Whatever ain't my goat? I watched the game. I'm a student of the game. I know a goat when I see one, and he is a goat of this generation. But all time, it's Michael Jordan.
That's who the hell it is. That's the goat you see. Kobe came into the game with a heart.
Lebron developed one.
First several years.
It wasn't like that because he was scared to get through the free throw line. He was never scared of an opponent. I would never disrespect greatness of Lebron James like that. He was scared to get to the free throw line. That's where the fallaway jumpers came from. That was where the hesitancy to get to go to the hole. Came from anything that could finally lend himself towards going to the free throw line.
He wasn't trying to do. But there's this thing about heart that you got to pay attention to.
You See, when you lack a speck of it at any point, particularly back in the day, there would be impediments and roadblocks to prevent you from getting it. Why do I call Michael Jordan the goat over Lebron James because at his very best, compared to Lebron at his very best, I'm going MJ all day every day.
But here's the biggest thing.
It was Scottie Pippen, with the Migraine and others associated with Lebron, with Michael Jordan that prevented him from climbing that ladder over the Detroit Pistons until the or fourth or fifth try.
Whenever it was. It wasn't because of MJ. And I'm telling you here right now as.
God as my witness. Lebron as great and phenomenal as he is, if he were playing in that era, as I've said on many occasions, and he gone against Michael Jordan, Michael Jordan would have tried to snatch his heart right out of his chest before he ever arrived to Miami, to learn to win with d Wade and with pat Riley.
That's my proclamation.
I said it before and I'll say it again. That's why Michael Jordan is my goat. It's just a basketball opinion.
To me. It's clearly a lot more than Lebron James.
Choking in the finals against the Dallas Mavericks in twenty eleven. Fine us getting in an argument about something in black media, and fine. The only consistent blemish I've placed against Lebron James is that he is not the greatest of all time. That's the frustration that's been brewing up more so than anything else. Bring up, Bronnie, if you want to, Bronnie James, I'm going to do my job, same energy. You mess up, I'm gonna mention it. You succeed, I'm gonna be there
celebrating it. That's what happens in the pros. You got nothing to worry about with me. All the best to you. I wish you nothing but the best. You're a great kid who I believe is gonna be in the NBA someday, sooner than later. On a regular consistent basis to the James family. My apologies for all that is happening. To the Draymond Greens world. I'm sad I hurt your friend or I upset your friend.
Bro.
Evidently that matters a lot to you. My bad to the basketball world. I'm Stephen A. Smith, demmit, and I'm gonna cover the sport the way I cover the sport. Ain't nobody changing me on that. I'm gonna give it to you how you deserve it, good, bad or in different, and that includes Lebron James. Ain't nobody changing. This was not about Bronni. This was about Lebron. He did all of this with his words and his proclamations and his assertions.
He also did it to show that it really does hurt 'em not to be the goat.
Oh wow.