Stephen A Smith has accused LeBron James of allegedly trying to sabotage his career by staging their infamous confrontation during a game between the Los Angeles Lakers and New York Knicks, earlier this year. He discussed his side of the incident during an appearance on 7PM in Brooklyn with Carmelo Anthony on Monday.
"I don't like his ass, not even a little bit. You do not understand the lengths this man would go to," Smith said of James. "This dates back more than a decade. I believe he's one way publicly and another way privately. He might not be interviewed and he might not be quoted, but the things he's says and the things he has said to people, it's gotten back to me, the things he's tried to do. If it were up to him, I wouldn't be where I am today."
He further recalled: "It's some low, low sh*t. The day that he rolled up on me courtside, it was the day my contract was announced, that I had stayed at ESPN. Go back and look at the camera angles. I arrived there in the first quarter. He rolled up on me in the third quarter. This is 2025. We've got technology everywhere. TNT is a nationally televised game. How is it we got one angle and the only angle you see was of him and his face?" Smith concluded by saying that he felt "set-up" by the incident.
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Stephen A Smith & LeBron James Beef
Stephen A Smith has been highly critical of LeBron James for many years, but their feud reached new heights in the wake of the Lakers drafting James' son, Bronny, in 2024. LeBron accosted him at the aforementioned game, earlier this year, to complain about Smith criticizing the 21-year-old.
Last week, Smith appeared on the Pivot podcast and accused James of treating him differently from other reporters because he is black. “You ever see LeBron go at a white boy?” Smith asked on the show, as caught by Sports Illustrated. “Let’s call it what it is. You ever see him do that? You saw him come at me. Closest you ever came to seeing him do something like that was when he called out Brian Windhorst. What you calling out Brian Windhorst for? The man covered you since junior high school and has praised you repeatedly and you used the Pat McAfee situation to go at him. And that’s the only time you ever seen LeBron James really go at somebody white. I’m going to call it what it is.”
