Stephen A. Smith issues apology for claim about LeBron James

James did not speak at the event, but various media outlets did list him as being in attendance. Smith seemed to become aware of this by the second hour of “First Take,” as he backtracked a bit.

“People are blowing up my phone since the first segment of the show when I talked about him at the memorial service,” Smith said. “I didn’t mean to say he wasn’t in the building. I was told he was in the building. We saw a whole bunch of players out there. We didn’t see him. Why? I’ll let him answer that one day, if he so chooses.”

By Thursday afternoon, Smith backed down entirely. He issued an apology on X, claiming he “misspoke” about James’ attendance and that he “should not have even broached that subject.” He did add that he retracted “NOTHING else that I said.”

Smith’s issue with James began after James confronted him over his coverage of Bronny James (video here). Since then, Smith has been capitalizing on the publicity from the situation by publicly criticizing James on a regular basis. James has mostly brushed off the situation since then, though he continues to tweak Smith publicly as the ESPN personality continues to make the most of the controversy.

Smith apologizing for any part of this situation is pretty telling, and suggests that the ESPN host knows he crossed a line by bringing up Bryant’s memorial in this context. Smith will not be laying off LeBron anytime soon, but it’s safe to say that particular point will not be coming up again.