{"id":698695,"date":"2026-06-12T00:17:08","date_gmt":"2026-06-12T00:17:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/698695\/"},"modified":"2026-06-12T00:17:08","modified_gmt":"2026-06-12T00:17:08","slug":"stephen-a-smith-doesnt-hold-back-on-lebron-james","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/698695\/","title":{"rendered":"Stephen A. Smith doesn\u2019t hold back on LeBron James"},"content":{"rendered":"

The GOAT conversation<\/a> has surfaced yet again after LeBron James told Time magazine,<\/a> \u201cI\u2019m not taking nobody over me.\u201d<\/p>\n

When Stephen A. Smith was asked about James\u2019 comments on ESPN\u2019s \u201cFirst Take,\u201d he didn\u2019t hold back from pointing out that Michael Jordan and other NBA greats<\/a> would never call themselves the GOAT.<\/p>\n

\u201cI know Michael Jordan, I speak to him often. I\u2019m telling you, he has never, ever, ever, once called himself the greatest,\u201d Smith said on \u201cFirst Take.\u201d \u201cIt\u2019s never happened. Kobe Bryant didn\u2019t call himself the greatest<\/a>. Kareem [Abdul-Jabbar] didn\u2019t call himself the greatest \u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

Smith continued to list other former NBA greats and didn\u2019t withhold from taking shots at James when telling the rest of the \u201cFirst Take\u201d hosts why James would say this.<\/p>\n

Stephen A. Smith didn\u2019t hold back while discussing LeBron James among the NBA\u2019s GOATs. Getty Images for SiriusXM<\/p>\n

Bulls legend Michael Jordan would never call himself the GOAT, Stephen A. Smith said. AFP via Getty Images<\/p>\n

\u201cBecause the man is addicted to trying to control the narrative,\u201d Smith said. \u201cThese are the reasons problems exist, and so many people who support him, they haven\u2019t seen the forest for the trees. They get caught up in that moment.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\tSign up for the California Morning Report newsletter\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tCalifornia’s top news, sports and entertainment delivered to your inbox every day.\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\tThanks for signing up!\n\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

When James said he wouldn\u2019t take anybody over himself, he said he believes Jordan, Bryant, Magic Johnson, Larry Bird, Shaquille O\u2019Neal, Wilt Chamberlain and Abdul-Jabbar would say the same thing.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf there\u2019s a general manager and he\u2019s eyeballing all of us on a baseline, with the No. 1 pick, it\u2019s gonna be hard not to take me, champ,\u201d James said.<\/p>\n

LeBron James said he would pick himself over any of the NBA\u2019s other greatest players. Getty Images<\/p>\n

Despite James\u2019 point that these NBA greats would take themselves over anybody, Smith spent the rest of the segment delivering shot after shot on James, and said he calculates every move he makes, and when he retires, he will be remembered as the best statistically.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs I told you before. He is on the Mount Rushmore. He is one of the top two in the history [of the NBA] \u2026,\u201d Smith said. \u201cBut that\u2019s as far as he\u2019s getting. As long as I\u2019m breathing, and I\u2019m on airwaves, it will never be what he wants it to be.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The GOAT conversation has surfaced yet again after LeBron James told Time magazine, \u201cI\u2019m not taking nobody over…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":698696,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[63],"tags":[2356,3013,1055,355,349,99,3692],"class_list":["post-698695","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nfl","tag-california","tag-lebron-james","tag-los-angeles-lakers","tag-nba","tag-nfl","tag-sports","tag-stephen-a-smith"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/698695","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=698695"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/698695\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/698696"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=698695"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=698695"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=698695"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}