Stephen A. Smith Defended Himself Against LeBron James’ Tweet With A 15-Minute Rant

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LeBron James may not want to fight Kyrie Irving, but it sounds like Stephen A. Smith certainly wants to start a fight with LeBron himself. If you can even believe it, the crab rangoon skeptic and ESPN reporter is injecting himself into the NBA’s most peculiar offseason story by ranting on the radio about James and the Cavaliers after it became public that Irving requested a trade out of Cleveland. After James flatly denied that he’s eager to get Kyrie Irving off his team, Smith responded on his radio show Monday with a 15-minute rant to open the show that included a long list of claims.

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“I’m about to say something here,” Smith said. “I’m going to openly confess that what I’m about to say—it’s personal.” “He’s talking about me. He’s talking about what I reported. And what I reported is that if LeBron James was in front of Kyrie Irving, I was told QUOTE ‘He would be tempted to whoop his arse.’ “That’s a quote. That’s what was TOLD to me. I did not speculate. I did not put that out there. It was TOLD to me. VERBATIM. In that manner. ‘Tempting.’ [ … ] “It wan’t meant to be taken literally. It was meant to highlight his level of frustration for what he perceives to be something that Kyrie Irving is doing.” It’s all very, very loud, and Smith is clearly passionate about this. Smith says he’s upset about the tweet because he’s popular enough that players come to him directly when they have a problem with his reporting. Being publicly critical is, in his mind, not the best course of action against someone who makes a living being publicly critical of sports stars. “Ladies and gentlemen LeBron James has access to my number. If it was almost any other superstar in the league, I’d have heard from them. They would have called me directly. I’m not bragging, but I got it like that.”

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