It was due to Stephen A. questioning James as a father<\/a> to his eldest son, Bronny James<\/a>, somewhat struggling to play well in the NBA.<\/p>\n Throughout his career, LBJ has mostly ignored the talking heads, but this time around, the LA Lakers star confronted Smith<\/a> about his actions.<\/p>\n While most believed that the LBJ-Smith beef was settled<\/a>, the ESPN analyst proved them wrong once again.<\/p>\n The veteran sports personality recently made an appearance on former NBA star Gilbert Arenas<\/a>\u2018 show, \u2018Gil\u2019s Arena.\u2019 During the appearance, Smith reignited his feud with the 4x NBA champion.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s no relationship. He doesn\u2019t like me, and I don\u2019t like him. There\u2019s nobody who can mediate. I don\u2019t talk about him unless I\u2019m asked. <\/p>\n \u201cSome people say, \u2018Well, why do you talk about him?\u2019 Because I was asked. This is what I do for a living, so how the hell am I gonna get away with saying \u2018no comment?\u2019\u201d Smith told Arenas.<\/p>\n As usual, Smith then took a jab at James\u2019 position in the GOAT debate<\/a>, placing him behind none other than Michael Jordan<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cI have no desire to talk about him. He is, in my mind, the second greatest player in the history of basketball. He\u2019s been an incredible ambassador to the game of basketball. <\/p>\n \u201cHis respect has been earned, not given\u2026 but that\u2019s the basketball player, not the man,\u201d Smith added.<\/p>\n Stephen A. Smith never wants to talk to LeBron James in his life<\/p>\n At 40 years old, James is already at the tail end of his NBA career. Keeping that in mind, it makes sense that the Lakers star is finally clapping back at people who have criticized him over the years.<\/p>\n Coming back to Stephen A.\u2019s side of the story, the First Take host continued to suggest receiving unfair treatment behind the scenes.<\/p>\n \u201cPeople don\u2019t know the things that have happened behind the scenes, the kind of things that have been engaged in an effort to hurt me,\u201d Smith stated.<\/p>\n The end result? Smith never wants to come face-to-face with LBJ ever again.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s a lot of s___ that I know that I don\u2019t say\u2026 If I never, ever speak to him in life, I\u2019m good with it,\u201d he concluded.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Los Angeles Lakers star LeBron James can often become an easy target for the media. A perfect example…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":235830,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3790],"tags":[7,4034,1698,300,4044,185,251,150,4033,4043,6,2603,574],"class_list":{"0":"post-235829","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles-lakers","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-la","10":"tag-la-lakers","11":"tag-lakers","12":"tag-lalakers","13":"tag-lebron-james","14":"tag-los-angeles","15":"tag-los-angeles-lakers","16":"tag-losangeles","17":"tag-losangeleslakers","18":"tag-nba","19":"tag-stephen-a-smith","20":"tag-western-conference"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/115043932843879321","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235829","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=235829"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235829\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/235830"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=235829"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=235829"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=235829"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"LeBron](\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/GettyImages-2209993833-1-940x627.jpg\")
Photo by Katelyn Mulcahy\/Getty ImagesStephen A. Smith once again pokes LeBron James<\/p>\n