During an interview with Cari Champion and Jemele Hill on their Flagrant and Funny podcast, Stephen A. Smith stressed that he’s never said anything disparaging about LeBron James’ son, Bronny James.
Last year, Stephen A. and LeBron had a viral moment when the latter confronted the former courtside. Many speculated it was over Stephen A.’s criticism of Bronny, but LeBron later said it was because the opinionated sports media personality had gotten too “personal” with his criticism. Stephen A., however, maintained that it was about his criticism of Bronny. The First Take co-host believes that he never criticized Bronny, despite the tense on-camera confrontation.
“In January, his son, Bronny James, is playing for the Los Angeles Lakers… The night before, he was in the G-League,” he explained around the 32-minute point of the Flagrant and Funny podcast, as seen below. “The next night, he’s guarding Tyrese Maxey. Me being a basketball guy, I know you can’t do that. You putting him out to slaughter. You can’t do that!”
He added that LeBron confronting him in such a public setting is a bad look, because he’s “asking us not to do our job.”
“So I point that out, when he was in high school,” he said. “I never went to Sierra Canyon to watch his son, because I knew it would be unfair to the James family. ‘Cause if I walk into an arena to watch a high-school kid, everybody’s going to ask me, ‘What do [you] think about that kid?’ I didn’t think that was fair to Bronny. He goes to USC. Obviously, he has the heart ailment. Praying for his recovery. He gets drafted. Everybody knows that LeBron James got his fingerprints all over that, because he didn’t have the resume to be drafted.”
Despite that, he said that he was happy to see Bronny playing alongside his dad in the NBA. “I’m standing up applauding… I never ever once uttered a negative word about that young man ever,” he claimed. “I didn’t say anything about him. I said, ‘What you doing? You his dad, we got to cover this. You can’t put him in that position in front of us. He’s gonna get slaughtered. That’s not good!’”
Stephen A. still believes that if LeBron had an issue with his comments about Bronny, he could have gotten his agent, Rich Paul, to get him on the phone for a chat. “If that man said, ‘I want to see you face-to-face, man-to-man, I got to have a conversation with you,’ it’s my obligation to get to that man as soon as I possibly can,” said Stephen A. Smith. “It never happened. I never knew anything until I was sitting courtside.” He added that he believes that LeBron’s issues with him extend beyond Bronny, but specified that LeBron has never confirmed as such.
“I never said anything about his son until that night, that game, and then two months later was when he rolled up on me,” he said. “I go on TV the next day, and I’m like, ‘I understand that was a dad talking.’ Let it go… Until he went on the Pat McAfee Show just to disrespect me.”
