“We don’t like each other. The world needs to know that,” Smith said flatly. “I hope he’s watching.”
Smith didn’t mince words about what caused the irreparable rift. He pointed directly to the March 6, 2025 incident, when James confronted him courtside after the Lakers’ overtime win over the Knicks.
“I think he crossed the line with the incident involving his son,” Smith said. “I don’t think I did what he said I was doing. I thought that was unfair and a low blow.”
At the time of the confrontation, James framed it as a father defending his son. “That wasn’t a basketball player confronting me; that was a parent,” James said then. Smith has never accepted that characterization.
“It’s important that everyone knows I know how great he is,” Smith said. “He is one of the greatest, top two, top three greatest players we have ever seen in our lifetimes.”
“What he has done for the game, what he has done as a role model for countless African-American men in this country and beyond cannot be measured,” Smith said.
He even admitted that stars like James have fueled his own platform. “Anybody who has been that great, people like me have benefited because he gives us something to talk about.”
“If he does great, I’m going to be the first one to stand up and say he’s done great,” Smith insisted. “If he makes a mistake, I got to do my job.”
“When his epitaph is written on his basketball career, the only negative thing you’ll hear me say about him is that he ain’t the GOAT,” Smith said. “That’s Michael Jordan.”
This isn’t the only recent friction between Smith and James. Just days earlier, Smith placed blame on LeBron for the decline of the NBA Slam Dunk Contest.
“I’m going to blame LeBron James,” Smith declared on First Take following the lackluster 2026 contest. “The person who really is the provocateur to ruin the slam dunk contest is him.”
Smith, now 58, insists he isn’t carrying bitterness through life. “I’m not interested in walking around bitter and with a grudge,” he said. But forgiveness is another matter entirely.
Time may heal everything, Smith suggested, but it hasn’t healed this. “As I see his career dwindling, it’s important everyone knows that I know how great he is.”