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LeBron James has let slip was what said in his argument with Stephen A. Smith.
The pair got into it at a Lakers game recently and it was getting heated.
James seemed to confide about the altercation with ESPN analyst and former Cavs teammate Richard Jefferson.
“Once he talks about, ‘I’m pleading with you as a father,’ I can’t,” James sounds like he’s saying to Jefferson.
These are the comments LeBron was referring to:
“I am pleading with LeBron James as a father: Stop this,” Smith said on “First Take” the following day. “Stop this. We all know that Bronny James is in the NBA because of his dad.”
SAS added, “How are you doing him favors? We know that he’s not ready yet. And I’m saying this with compassion. … You know what these numbers mean. You know what it’s going to do to your son, to people that are missing out on opportunities, that are busting their tail on other NBA teams and the G League and Europe and everywhere else, what kind of opportunity they’re starving for. You’re exposing your son like this?”
Smith himself addressed the confrontation on First Take.
“That wasn’t a basketball player confronting me. That was a parent,” Smith said. “That was a father. I can’t sit here and be angry or feel slighted by LeBron James in any way in that regard. By all accounts, he’s obviously a wonderful family man and a wonderful father who cares very, very deeply about his son. … He clearly took exception to some of the things he heard me say and he confronted me about it.”
Smith added that he did not respond to James at the game because it wasn’t the right kind of setting to do so.
“But if we had had that conversation, I would have said to LeBron James, ‘I never would speak negatively about your son. I was talking about you,’ meaning you, LeBron James,” Smith said.
“My point months ago was that because of who you are, one of the top two players in the history of basketball in my estimation, there’s an immense amount of pressure that comes with that for his son. … And that’s when I was talking about, ‘Come on, man. This is the situation that you’re putting him in.’ That’s where I was coming from.”
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