Shaq sets off Stephen A. Smith with just 1 comment about LeBron James
TNT analyst and Hall of Famer Shaquille O’Neal set off ESPN “First Take” host Stephen A. Smith with a comment Thursday about LeBron James’ future.
If you were LeBron, where would you go? co-host Molly Qerim asked O’Neal.
“Golden State,” said the former Lakers great.
This answer set Smith off.
“Why? Why? Why? Let him answer why, because I know you’re joking,” said Smith. “You can’t be serious.”
But O’Neal said it’s not a joke. “One, he’s older, he’s on his way down. … He’s already got what, four rings?” Shaq said.
“Three,” corrected Smith. “He’s three and five in the Finals.”
“He’ll get three more,” responded O’Neal.
Smith was incredulous. “So just go, shift the balance of power,” he said. “You’re lying. You’re lying on national TV.”
Smith asked O’Neal if he would have done the same thing and gone to play with the Knicks’ Patrick Ewing or the Rockets’ Hakeem Olajuwon instead of competing against them.
“You know what’s crazy, I told my boy the other day, if you could do that, I would have went to Chicago and just played with Mike [Michael Jordan]. I didn’t know that’s how you could do it,” he said.
O’Neal was clearly yanking Smith’s chain to rile him up. He said he wouldn’t have taken that route.
But times have clearly changed, said O’Neal. “We live in a different era,” he said. “I guess you can do stuff like this now.”
“He does stuff like this just to get on my nerves,” said Smith of O’Neal. “You shouldn’t even be joking about stuff like that.”
“I just like to hear you go off,” said O’Neal, who later said he’d like to see James stay in Cleveland.
ESPN reported Feb. 1 that LeBron would be willing to meet with Golden State in free agency.
“If the Golden State Warriors can create a max salary slot this offseason, the defending NBA champions could position themselves to secure a meeting with LeBron James,” wrote ESPN’s Chris Haynes.
For what’s its worth, James called the reports of his interest in Golden State “nonsense” and a nonstory.”
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