If you thought the LeBron James vs. Stephen A. Smith beef would end, you are wrong. This might continue being the story of the week, if not the month. These two continue throwing virtual punches at each other, and for now, it seems like LeBron is winning. Looking at social media reactions and fans’ reactions, people are clowning Stephen A. Smith for his takes on the oldest player in the league.
LeBron vs. Stephen A. Smith Beef Reaches New Heights
As things are going right now, it seems like LeBron managed to turn Stephen A Smith into the new Skip Bayless. Skip made a career of trying to trash James, and he retired from television before LeBron hung his sneakers. In what might be only described as the best new meme, LeBron was the last to post on social media last night. On his Instagram account, LeBron posted a meme of Stephen A. Smith practicing boxing. To understand the meme, we have to take things a little back.
Charting the Timeline of the Recent James vs. SAS Beef
The original beef began weeks or even months ago when Stephen A. Smith went on national television discussing Bronny James. He said the son of LeBron is not ready for the NBA, and begged the best scorer in league history to stop trying to push Bronny into the league.
Then, when the Lakers hosted the Knicks, LeBron knew Smith would be in the building. Right after the game ended, he went to him and told him to back off Bronny and stop messing with his family. The next day, Stephen went on national television to talk about the incident. That is how we get to yesterday to what we can describe as the weirdest beef between a television personality and an NBA star.
LeBron Blasting Smith on TV
First, it was LeBron going on Pat McAfee’s show and talking about Smith, saying,
“He’s like on a Taylor Swift tour run right now. It started off with I didn’t want to address it, yeah sure, I didn’t want to address I wasn’t going to address it but since the video came out, I feel the need to address it, it went viral. Are you kidding me? If there’s one person that couldn’t wait for the video to drop so you can address it is your ass like seriously! He completely missed the whole point. Never would I ever not allow people to talk about the sport, or criticize players about what they do on the court… But when you take things personally, it is my job to protect my damn household and protect the players. I know that he’s going to be happy as hell, he’s gonna be smiling from ear to ear when he hears me talking about him again. He’s gonna get home, and grab some ice cream out of the freezer and sit it in his chair in tighty whities on the couch.”
Smith Fires Back at LeBron
Stephen A. waited to see the show and then talked about LeBron during his entire Stephen A. Smith Show. He began by acknowledging LeBron’s humor, saying,
“The ighty whities’ comment was funny cuz I don’t wear tighty whities. I will let you figure out why that is but moving on from that particular subject, I don’t consider anything that LeBron has said a laughing matter. Some people out there are going to be like, I am milking the story for all it’s worth. Well, I’ve been winning in television for quite some time. I don’t need an incident like this to talk about LeBron. And I don’t need an incident like this to get ratings, LeBron gives us plenty of ammunition to talk about him.”
But maybe the most interesting part of the 50 minutes Stephen A. Smith talked about LeBron was the boxing comment. Referring to the video when James confronted him after the Lakers vs. Knicks game, Smith said,
“I would have gotten my ass kicked. Because had that man put his hands on me I would have immediately swung on him. Immediately! I am not going to tolerate but I knew he wasn’t going to do something like that, there was no fear in my mind about it.”
The Cherry on Top
That comment definitely took on social media, with fans posting a funny meme of Smith practicing boxing. Then, Smith took to Twitter to explain himself, saying,
“Nice try folks. On my show, I said I would’ve swung on @KingJames had he slapped me — like lots of y’all said I was scared he would’ve done a few weeks ago. I also said immediately after that I would’ve gotten my ass thoroughly kicked by the 6’8”, 250lb Goliath, but folks just left that part of my Youtube sentence out, huh? Okay. Have fun!”
Then, LeBron posted the meme on his Instagram account. And with that, the night finished. What today will bring, let’s wait and see.
Photo credit: © Gary A. Vasquez-Imagn Images
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