The alleged beef between LeBron James and Stephen A Smith reached a tipping point on March 6 when the Lakers star confronted the ESPN analyst after his team pulled off a 113-109 win in overtime. Since the incident, Smith has taken persistent shots at James, including calling the all-time scoring leader “weak” for approaching him unprovoked at the Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles.
Draymond Green, a close friend of James, weighed in on the subject on his “Draymond Green Show” podcast on March 15. Green revealed he told Bob Myers, a current ESPN analyst, to relay his message to Smith when they meet at the ESPN studios.
“You make sure you tell Stephen A that I have zero respect for what he said [about James],” Green said of his conversation with Myers, the former GM of the Warriors.
“You go on national TV and call out this African-American father who’s raised another successful black young man [Bronny James], and you go on TV calling him out as a father because his son played in the NBA? That’s a** backwards.”
Green On Stephen A Smith’s Hypocrisy
The former Defensive Player of the Year further blasted Smith for “condemning” a father for wanting to see his son succeed and make it in the NBA.
He revealed more details on his conversation with Myers on the subject.
“I told Bob that you should tell him: ‘I can’t respect that,’” Green continued. “If you want to talk about him as a basketball player, talk about him as a basketball player. The same [applies to] Bronny — go ahead. He’s an NBA player, talk about him all you want.”
Green added that it’s “whack” for the NBA media to focus so much on the 55th pick in the NBA Draft, Bronny, rather than highlighting players drafted ahead of him.
Why Smith Called James ‘Weak’
In his initial address of the confrontation with James, Smith did not delve into too many details and also didn’t let it rip on the Lakers star. However, his tone seemingly changed during his appearance on the “Gil’s Arena” podcast on March 11.
“I thought it was weak, I thought it was some bulls—,” Smith said of James confronting him, via Fox News. “But in the moment, I knew that I was listening to a father. He said, ‘Yo, you gotta stop talking s— about my son. You gotta stop f—ing with my son — that’s my son. That’s my son.”
“I thought that he misrepresented the argument, I was glad he did,” Smith continued. “Because what he was really talking about, which was confirmed with his conversation with Richard Jefferson — is that I was talking about him as a father. Had he said that to me, I wouldn’t have been thrown off. I would’ve came right back at him — yes I was, I was talking about you, you did this s—.”
Since the initial confrontation, Rich Paul, the business manager of James, has tried to nullify the situation by suggesting that James had “moved on” from the drama. However, Smith has seemingly not done so, doing several media rounds to address his issues with James.
Like Heavy Sports’s content? Be sure to follow us.
This article was originally published on Heavy Sports
The post Warriors Star Has ‘Zero Respect’ For Stephen A Smith appeared first on Heavy Sports.