Stephen A. Smith Sparks Controversy with Racial Double Standard Accusation Against LeBron James

Stephen A. Smith has once again stirred up his ongoing dispute with LeBron James, this time by accusing the NBA icon of showing bias towards journalists based on their race.

This tension traces back to a moment in March when cameras captured a heated exchange between Smith and James during a Los Angeles Lakers game against Smith’s favored New York Knicks. According to Smith, the confrontation stemmed from comments he made regarding James’s son, Bronny.

The sports commentator revisited the incident on a recent episode of ‘The Pivot Podcast’ with Ryan Clark, where he openly questioned James’s behavior. “Have you ever seen LeBron confront a White journalist? Let’s be honest. You might have seen him challenge me,” Smith remarked.

Smith defended his professional integrity, asserting, “Anyone with knowledge of sports and journalistic ethics knows I did nothing wrong to that young man. To portray me as someone who would attack a child simply because I may not like you is a low blow.”

‘Anybody with professional ethics, who knows sports and knows what comes with it knows that I did not do anything wrong to that young man. But to paint me as somebody that would attack a child, just because I dislike you, it’s low, it’s low,’ Smith said. 

Smith did acknowledge that James had also previously criticized Brian Windhorst, who has followed his basketball career since high school. 

‘You saw him come at me. Closest you ever came to seeing him do something like that [to a white journalist] was when he called out Brian Windhorst,’ Smith continued. 

‘What you calling out Brian Windhorst for? The man covered you since junior high school and has praised you repeatedly and you used the Pat McAfee situation to go at him. [T]hat’s the only time you ever seen LeBron James really go at somebody white. I’m going to call it what it is.’ 

He once again defended his comments on Bronny’s games as he maintained that James Sr was in the wrong. 

‘LeBron was wrong, and he will forever be wrong,’ said Smith. ‘And as far as I’m concerned, anybody in this business or anybody that wants to be in this business, especially these athletes with their podcast that don’t see it, well, just consider yourself blind or unethical. 

‘Because anybody with professional ethics who knows sports and knows what comes with it, knows I did not do anything wrong to that young man. But to paint me as somebody that would attack a child just because I dislike you. It’s low. It’s low. And that’s what it is, and that’s where it’s going to stay.

‘And the only reason I said it is because you asked me, and it’s because of how I feel, and I’m not going to change. And if he don’t say nothing, I’m not going to say anything. I’m just going to do my job. If there’s another confrontation, I assure you I’ll be better ready and better prepared this time. I promise you that.

It wasn’t the first time that Smith has continued their war of words. The ESPN star previously accused the Lakers star of being a ‘liar’ and a ‘bully’. He even claimed: ‘Had that man put his hands on me, I would have immediately swung on him’

LeBron, meanwhile, went on The Pat McAfee Show, and mocked Smith for repeatedly discussing their feud. ‘He is on a Taylor Swift tour run right now,’ James joked.

In august, Smith claimed that he and James have ‘no relationship’. ‘He doesn’t like me, and I don’t like him… if I never, ever speak to him again in life, that will be OK. And I’m good with it,’ Smith said on the Gil’s Arena livestream. ‘There’s nobody that can mediate.’

‘And the last straw was him approaching me and turning the Bronny thing into something about me attacking somebody’s family, when it was him I was talking about. Not Bronny,’ the ESPN star continued.

The analyst has always maintained that the four-time NBA champion misconstrued his comments about his son.