Stephen A. Smith is a New York Times Bestselling Author, Executive Producer, host of ESPN's First Take, and co-host of NBA Countdown.
I want to take a moment to address Lebron James and the public reaction to the Lakers superstar stepping away from social media.
Now.
There are many opinions on the topic, from journalists to athletes and beyond.
I'm gonna address it all in a moment.
But did y'all see what Cowboys linebacker Michael Parson said to The Athletic when asked if he was going to follow Lebron and step away from the media. For those of you who didn't see it, please check this out.
Quote.
Lebron was on social media for twenty years, so what are you saying. I've been in the league for four years now, I need to get off social media. Four championships later, Lebron was on social media when he won an NBA title. What are we saying here? Michael Parsons continued. Lebron also tweeted six months ago that his son was better.
Than NBA players. Did you say he was on Twitter? Then?
You know what I'm saying. We can't play that type of game. I'm in Ross Saint Brown has his podcast. Why doesn't anybody talk about his podcast? There's a bunch of people doing podcasts. Don't bring that up about Michael Parson's podcast. That's why you get paid the big bucks. I don't know everyone's contract, but I get paid pretty well.
End quote.
I get what Michael Parsons is saying. He's sitting there talking about having a podcast. Is not a distraction, et cetera, et cetera. He had the podcast when the Dallas covers were twelve and five and projected to make a deep run into the playoffs, so we can't bring it up.
Now that they're stinking up the joint.
I get that part, but there's a bigger story, and the story extends beyond Michael Pauss's. To be quite honest with you, I think Michael Paster's being having his own podcast. I don't have any problem with it whatsoever. He has interesting things to say. I don't agree with everything, but that's my man, and I wish him nothing but the best. And I think that he's going to continue to grow and grow in this industry.
I wish him nothing but the best. Keep doing your thing.
The issue is Lebron James, and to a lesser degree, the person responsible for the original tweet that Lebron James ultimately retweeted to make all of this noise. Rich Kleiman, partner with KD Kevin Durant thirty five Ventures and Beyond, brought that up because he brought up a tweet about negativity and what this world has turned into and sports used to bring ups together.
You know, sounded like the second coming of Gandhi. Basically we understand that there he is.
Rich Climb with Kevin Durant, he wasn't entirely wrong. There are trolls on social media, weak ass people who hide behind computers and keyboards and stuff on their phone to say and spew anything that they want because their definition of success and positivity is lowering you to their level rather than elevating themselves to yours. Fair enough, but there's another side to.
All of this that everybody needs to pay attention to.
Number One, Rich Climent shouldn't be talking like he's somebody that's removed from the media, like everything he said wasn't applicable to him and his partner, Kevin Durant thirty five Ventures is involved in a lot of different ventures, no pun intended, and a lot of it has to do with the media them influencing.
Minds and what have you.
Not to mention profit it, profiting off of it all exponentially. I don't see rich Climan pointing that out. I don't see him pointing out KD having a burner account just so he could clap back at people without.
Them knowing it's him.
I don't see him saying anything when KD wants to come after me or somebody else using words like clown and fools and all of this other stuff in a very derogatory fashion. I might add to insult people that falls under that category. So those living glasshouses shouldn't throw stones. Let me get to the bigger point about Lebron James. Lebron James choosing to step for for social media, and I was hesitant to bring this up because I didn't want to because Lebron James is approaching age forty, is on the Mount Rushmore of basketball, one of the top two players in NBA history, and we will miss him when he is going. He's a special, special dude on all fronts, but none of us are perfect. And Lebron James electing to get off of social media. Is that because of you, Lebron James, or is it because of your son, Bronni James and his struggles in the D League, in the NBA, prior to that college basketball, prior to that high school basketball, when he was in All American average in fourteen points a game and people said, no, all American averages fourteen points a game.
It's probably the latter. You know.
Greg Anthony alluded to this earlier, and that's why I asked him the question.
When you think about.
Lebron James and what Lebron James had to say, Greg Anthony made a very valid point the level of vitrioll in Lebron James's experience throughout his career. He's one of the most scrutinized superstars in history. It's not because these Lebron James. It's because when he came along is when social media shortly followed. Imagine what scrutiny Charles Barkley and m Jay and Isaiah and others would have received had there been so the existence of social media, had there been Instagram and x formerly known as Twitter and Facebook and TikTok and all of this other stuff, Imagine what it would have been if they played during that time. So we understand that Lebron James has received the heightened level of scrutiny, but we also understand that he's fully capable of taking and absorbing it and stomaching it.
So why step away now?
Truthfully speaking, it only makes sense that it's Bronnie James not to be redundant, but it's necessary to be that way. Bronnie James doesn't belong in the NBA, not yet. Some people say never. I don't believe that. I believe the kid has a chance, and I think that he's going to do. I believe in him, I believe in his work. Ethic is faith, et cetera, et cetera. But he's not ready yet, which brings this back to Lebron James. We don't have to scrutinize Bronni James in terms of points for game average and all of this other stuff. Please, he's a kid. He'll come along, he'll work on his game. Hopefully he'll earn his stripes. Respectfully, this is all Lebron's fault. It was Lebron James that told the world. Sitting next to his wonderful wife Savannah for an interview, asked the question, what does he want for Bronnie? What do they want for Bronnie? She said, I just want him to be happy. Lebron James said, I want to play with him in the NBA. I want him in the NBA. And then, because he's Lebron James, he greased the Skins and facilitated it happening, ensuring through Rich Pall that nobody we're draft Brownie James before the Lakers grabbed him, because there were teams tempted to do it just to keep him away from the Lakers and Lebron. Most importantly, Lebron James was caught saying publicly that Bronnie James was better than some players in the NBA.
Did you think people were gonna forget that?
See, I'm not getting into Bronnie James because none of this is Bronnie james fault. He's just a kid out there working hard, trying to be the best that he can be, who is very blessed and fortunate to have a father like Lebron James, who loves him and had no ill intent whatsoever.
But just because you didn't have.
Ill intent doesn't mean that your intent didn't end up being.
Ill fated because you put this kid behind an eight ball and now he's a target.
For everybody and whatever level of scrutinies he's experiencing, and whatever difficulty he's having and stomaching and dealing with all of it.
Is because his father couldn't keep his mouth shut.
His father could have just play and say I want my son happy, no matter what he wants to do. It would be a dream come true to play in the NBA with him. But we can't have everything we want. Hopefully some day had happened and there's left it alone. You didn't do that, and as a result and all like the hood, Bronnie James is experiencing an elevated level of scrutiny that would be difficult for anybody his age, with his experience, and with his unfamiliarity in being associated with this kind of critique, it's been difficult for him. That doesn't make lebron James the worst person in the world. He's a damn good father, He's a family man. He's an iconic figure that we all should we not just respect.
But in the same breath, rather than say I'm stepping.
Off of social media because of the negativity, how about adding, especially some of the negativity I unintentionally brought on my own son.
I need to take a step back.
I'm not saying you should have done it automatically, but since you felt the need to do what you did in terms of retweeting Rich Climban's tweet and stepping away from social media, and since you were framed from just stepping away quietly and basically piggybacked off a Rich climb to blame the national media, could you blame yourself Because in the end, nobody is more guilty of making Tom's hard for Brownie James the basketball player than lebron James.
That's just a fact. There's no way around it.
Still roote for you, Bronnie. Keep working hard, keep making things happen. You got a chance. No matter what the critics say to lebron James, respectfully, I know you had the best of intentions, but the national media ain't the problem, bro Not in the case of Bronnie James, that would happen to be you.