Stephen A. Smith is not backing down from his feud with LeBron James, but he did acknowledge that he went too far in one area on Thursday.
During an extended comment about James on ESPN’s “First Take” Thursday, Smith claimed he was doing James a favor by leaving certain controversies out of their feud. Smith then cited an example of James not attending the public memorial for Kobe Bryant after Bryant’s death in 2020.
“I suggest that he be happy with the things that I haven’t brought up. I never brought up really, and never really discussed, why you were not at Kobe Bryant’s memorial service,” Smith said.
Stephen A. Smith on LeBron James: "I suggest that he be happy with the things that I haven't brought up. I never brought up really and never really discussed why you were not at Kobe Bryant's memorial service. I never really brought up or discussed why you did not attend Dwyane… pic.twitter.com/Wji02Zidej
— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) March 27, 2025
James did not speak at the event, but various media outlets did list him as being in attendance. Smith seemed to become aware of this by the second hour of “First Take,” as he backtracked a bit.
“People are blowing up my phone since the first segment of the show when I talked about him at the memorial service,” Smith said. “I didn’t mean to say he wasn’t in the building. I was told he was in the building. We saw a whole bunch of players out there. We didn’t see him. Why? I’ll let him answer that one day, if he so chooses.”
By Thursday afternoon, Smith backed down entirely. He issued an apology on X, claiming he “misspoke” about James’ attendance and that he “should not have even broached that subject.” He did add that he retracted “NOTHING else that I said.”
My apologies and clarification. I misspoke in Hour#1 of @FirstTake today when I intimated that LeBron did not attend Kobe Bryant’s memorial. I corrected myself in Hour#2 when I acknowledged he was indeed in attendance. My mistake. Should not have even broached that subject. It…
— Stephen A Smith (@stephenasmith) March 27, 2025
Smith’s issue with James began after James confronted him over his coverage of Bronny James (video here). Since then, Smith has been capitalizing on the publicity from the situation by publicly criticizing James on a regular basis. James has mostly brushed off the situation since then, though he continues to tweak Smith publicly as the ESPN personality continues to make the most of the controversy.
Smith apologizing for any part of this situation is pretty telling, and suggests that the ESPN host knows he crossed a line by bringing up Bryant’s memorial in this context. Smith will not be laying off LeBron anytime soon, but it’s safe to say that particular point will not be coming up again.
