Stephen A Smith versus Lebron James.

You gotta pick a side, But the real winner is not who you think it is.

I'm gonna tell you who it is and what's really going on behind the scenes here on the Unafraid Show.

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Let's get to it.

For over a week now, stephen A Smith and Lebron James have been going at it and people have picked Usie, Oh, it's Lebron being too sensitive, steven A Smith's being too sensitive.

But I'm gonna tell you who it is.

ESPN is the only winner in this situation because they just paid stephen A.

Smith a boot pool load of money some speculate up to one hundred million dollars and on a night when Lebron hit the game winner, you are in a playoff run in the NBA.

Great players doing great things.

We're talking about steven A.

Smith and Pat McAfee and this the whole network.

Brian winhors everybody else.

ESPN is like yes, ratings gold, So they are the biggest winner in this situation.

But the question is who's at fault?

And you know who's the person to blame.

So if you're not familiar with what happened.

Obviously a few weeks months ago, Steven A.

Smith goes on First Take and he pleads with Lebron Lebron as a father, as a.

Father, you can't keep sending your son out there.

And as a man who's very, very protective of maturans, if you come at me like that, the insinuation is, I don't know what I'm doing as a daddy.

I don't know what I'm doing as a father.

And by all accounts now, mind, I have had the personal privilege of watching Lebron James up close and personal, Savannah up close and personal for like five years because my kids and his kids went to the same school, so had the privilege of seeing them up there, how they interact with the faculty, how they interact with everybody.

And the dude is absolute gold in terms of how he's acting as a parent.

He's not trying to stampede the coach, not trying to do none of that stuff.

So as a dad, I.

Would be hot if you came at me like that, like I'm doing something wrong to my kid.

When there's all this nepotism out in the world and my kid I believe is actually talented, because every parent believes that their kid is special, talented and everything else.

And Bronnie started to prove it even for all you haters.

Oh look at them moving the gold post box score, box score, box score, look at the BLUs minus honest stuff.

Right.

But here is where Steven A.

Smith has won because he got to avenge.

He got to avenge his boy, Skip Bayless.

By that, so Skip Bayless spent you know, fifteen years banging on the Lebron drum just oh he's not the go, don't have the clutch, gen and everything else.

Lebron just refused to respond to him.

So now Stephen A.

Smith got what nobody has really gotten from Lebron James in terms of like direct shot.

He got a response.

So now that magnifies everything that Stephen A.

Smith says.

So Stephen A.

Smith is winning in that aspect.

He's proving his worth in terms of drumming up content, drumming up interest in what he has to say about whatever, whether it's politics, whether it's sports.

Anything like that.

The man's engaging.

You cannot say he's not good at his job.

And also on a side note for all you people that be like, oh he's a clowns.

No, no, no, Steven A.

Smith has put a lot of folks on.

He is not a guy who just hoards his fame and opportunity and all of that.

No, he's a guy who tries to consistently help other people raise up.

Now with that, that does not mean that he's not being Ralph Transmitt right now, I want a man.

With sid steevity.

Right now.

Stephen A.

Smith is taking himself way too seriously because this is the first time that he has been the butt of jokes.

He spent years and times on television being hypercritical of players.

Look at the Kwame Brown situation.

Oh he's a bump, small hands, not one post move that he can recite from memory two times.

In a row.

That whole thing.

It ain't no fun when the rabbit got the gun.

So yes, stephen A.

Smith, you could have just took the l right, and then people actually have manipulated something else that Stephen A said.

And this one got banged out yesterday.

This one got circulated yesterday.

So before y'all say, but I know y'all want to say, I caught myself.

So here is what the clip that circulated yesterday was that man put his hands on me, I would have immediately swung on them immediately.

So he was like, yo, if he's come at me, I'm swinging at him.

You're like, are you sure?

But prior to that, to his credit, he did say I'll probably get my ass what by six eight two hundred and fifty pounds man?

So that clip hits a little bit different and people aren't sharing that because it's funny and the internet has no chill and black folks got no chill on the internet.

They are gonna make jokes out of everything.

And then Lebron did the ultimate middle finger back.

Because Lebron don't really do interviews.

He don't sign cards like he hasn't had a what a signed card until recently, since like twenty fourteen.

He don't do card deals like that, sign deals, don't do none of the stuff that people would traditionally do.

Access to Lebron for interviews is very very difficult, and Lebron is like cool.

He went on a New Heights podcast, then he went on then he went on Pat McAfee yesterday, and there is famous beef between Pat McAfee and Steven A.

Smith.

There's work beef about who's the top dog at ESPN, So that's kind of a slap in the face of And he didn't just come on for five minutes, ten minutes like bro was on for like an hour.

So that was a slap in the face of Stephen A.

And this is where I say Steven A.

Smiths taking himself way too seriously right now, because at some point in time.

You gotta just laugh at yourself.

Listen when the clips were circulating about the boxing and then people were laughing, it's okay.

Because look at this.

I don't know how we can look at that as anything but comedy and hilarious because it don't look like you could fight it all coupled with.

What it said.

So this is where sometimes you gotta let stuff roll off your back.

And he's a veteran, he knows that people clipped it that way on purpose.

And then he fell literally into the sinkhole.

And then after Lebron confronted him at the game, then he went on the Press Store, went on Gilbert Show, went on other shows, talking.

Big and bad and you know, like that ain't it, man, That is not it.

And the fact that we have two of our most prominent black figures out here beefing on the media.

Then you got Kendrick Perkins adding into it, this.

Ain't it and it is petty, and it has turned petty, and it has turned more than personal.

And this is and this actually has led to Stephen A.

Smith saying something today that he had to retract that was a flat out lie.

And this is a debate that I've had with people before.

If you know something is true and then you say the opposite, that's a lie.

If you are ignorant of information and you say something, is that a lie?

You guys comming.

Down and is that a lie?

Or is that I just didn't know what the hell I was talking about?

So what happened today is Steven A.

Smith he got up on there and he said, oh, well, I'm not even I haven't even talked about why you weren't at Kobe's memorial or why you weren't at d Wade's Hall of Fame thing.

And I'm like, I know for a fact it has been verified by the La Times, Entertainment Tonight, other outlets that lebron was absolutely at Kobe's memorial after he passed away.

And look at Diana Tarassi, and here's what she had to say.

Does this look like a man who's not at the.

Building, I mean, who has a turner rate fadeaway jumper at eleven Lebron barely got it today.

No, that looks like a man that she's pointing at because she sees him.

And then Stephen A.

Smith realized because the fact checkers got him and he was on air, and he says, oh, yo, I wasn't saying that he wasn't there.

I was saying that he wasn't on camera.

And there's a reason for that.

Man.

You should have just got up on camera, taking yourself too seriously and said listen, I messed up.

I said something wrong.

I screwed up.

That wasn't true.

That's the part that we gotta get to.

And this is the part where we have lost it in politics.

We've lost it in relationships, We've lost it in everything.

When you know the truth or you know you screwed something up, just say, hey, yo, I blew it.

I was one hundred percent wrong.

I thought this and I was wrong.

But instead they try to spend it, try to make it be something else, when all that's gonna do is unravel.

It's gonna unravel and cause more issues for you.

And then you got Lebron James airing out.

Oh sorry, steven A.

Smithtoma.

When you retired, Let's see how much I talk about you.

Then you won't matter much, I promise you.

I mean he might.

Michael Jordan is still mattered, Kobe is still mattered.

The all time greats, Magic Johnson is still mattered.

The all time greats still matter.

Like the the top three, one, two, three, four, five guys always matter.

So yes, you're still gonna talk about them no matter what.

But here is where Lebron James was dead wrong.

He was one one hundred percent wrong on the Pat McAfee show for the way he kind of talked about Brian went Windhorse, because Brian Windhorst has essentially had to dedicate his life to following Lebron around since he went to Cleveland and Miami then out to La getting scoops and everything else.

And at one point in time, Bron said that he's probably the guy that knows him the most in the media, and then to kind of take a shot at Brian Winhurst.

I think Bron got caught up in a moment and that wasn't cool because I guarant damn t you that Brian Winhorse has kept some secrets, not even necessarily like nefarious stuff.

I'm saying like stuff that went on in the locker room, stuff that was sad, stuff that Lebron did anything that would have painted him in an unfavorable light.

And Brian Windhorst was like, nah, I'm not gonna say that I will protect the access.

I'm going to say it up to a line and then we gonna chill there.

So I didn't think that that was cool.

And then Kendrick Perkins, who I just saw my daughter's birthday at Fixing Soul Kitchen down there in La.

Shout out Kevin Johnson, former NBA player, former governor of Marrisach, Sacramento, owns fantastic soul food spot.

Amazing if you go to sac or La, absolutely go.

But anyways, he took a shot at Lebron.

He was like, why didn't you go on you know, Channing Fry's podcast or this guy's podcast.

Oh, but you went on with with Steve Nash and you went on with JJ Reddick, like kind of trying to imply that Lebron, oh, he's caping for the white man, when in reality is like the there's a portion of the white populace that don't like Lebron at all.

He's never been caping for anybody.

He's been trying to do his best at at trying to spread spread whatever are his passions out in the world.

Now, has he made some missteps, Yes, nobody's purtracked, but the intent has been good.

But now this has turned into like super personal and we've gotten to a point where, like our sports media personalities have gotten so big that instead that you know that it becomes more about being right, because you got to say it with force.

You gotta say it with conviction, you gotta say it with passion, you gotta say it.

That's what they teach you.

So where's the human side of this?

And this is where Lebron is wrong to like criticize me.

Oh, how you cover the NBA.

Well, there's stuff that's broken in the NBA.

Players not playing hard all the time, the whistles, the load management, the NBA is trying to reel it all back in.

It's okay, But for stephen A to take a shot at that man's son, I'd have turned up to well, why didn't George, George, George, why didn't he approach him?

Man to man?

Well, just a few weeks prior what happened, prior to the incident at the at the court, what I happened?

Stephen A went on TV and was like, Yo, Maverick Carter and Lebron's can't hit me up about what I said on TV?

Blah blah blah.

I thought this was a private conversation, fam, So now ain't no point in reaching reaching out to you.

I'm gonna pull up on you and have a conversation.

That's all I got for you.

And if you come at my family, you've gone too far.

But who do you believe is winning this beef?

Who do you believe is the is the is on the right side of things because Lebron's getting the internet memes they're cooking stephen.

A on AI.

But here's the thing, don't take yourself too seriously, Lebron, stephen A Smith, y'all gonna be in twenty years probably doing doing an interview talking about this and making making up because you can't come for a man's family.

You come for a man's family, you're gonna get roughed up.

Usually that's just the facts.