The GOAT conversation has surfaced yet again after LeBron James told Time magazine, “I’m not taking nobody over me.”
When Stephen A. Smith was asked about James’ comments on ESPN’s “First Take,” he didn’t hold back from pointing out that Michael Jordan and other NBA greats would never call themselves the GOAT.
“I know Michael Jordan, I speak to him often. I’m telling you, he has never, ever, ever, once called himself the greatest,” Smith said on “First Take.” “It’s never happened. Kobe Bryant didn’t call himself the greatest. Kareem [Abdul-Jabbar] didn’t call himself the greatest …”
Smith continued to list other former NBA greats and didn’t withhold from taking shots at James when telling the rest of the “First Take” hosts why James would say this.
“Because the man is addicted to trying to control the narrative,” Smith said. “These are the reasons problems exist, and so many people who support him, they haven’t seen the forest for the trees. They get caught up in that moment.”
When James said he wouldn’t take anybody over himself, he said he believes Jordan, Bryant, Magic Johnson, Larry Bird, Shaquille O’Neal, Wilt Chamberlain and Abdul-Jabbar would say the same thing.
“If there’s a general manager and he’s eyeballing all of us on a baseline, with the No. 1 pick, it’s gonna be hard not to take me, champ,” James said.
Despite James’ point that these NBA greats would take themselves over anybody, Smith spent the rest of the segment delivering shot after shot on James, and said he calculates every move he makes, and when he retires, he will be remembered as the best statistically.
“As I told you before. He is on the Mount Rushmore. He is one of the top two in the history [of the NBA] …,” Smith said. “But that’s as far as he’s getting. As long as I’m breathing, and I’m on airwaves, it will never be what he wants it to be.”
