Over the last two decades, one of the biggest critics of Los Angeles Lakers superstar LeBron James has been sports pundit Skip Bayless. In an interesting turn of events, it is now Bayless who has come to James’ defense against one of James’ biggest defenders in the NBA, Golden State Warriors star Draymond Green.
Green recently reacted to James’ performance in his team’s play-in tournament win over the Minnesota Timberwolves and seemed a bit surprised for a specific reason.
“He looked gassed at times, I was very shocked at that,” Green said on a recent episode of his podcast. “You never gotta question whether Bron is in shape or not, but he did look a little tired.”
Now, it’s Bayless of all people who seems to think that Green crossed the line with his comments.
.@RealSkipBayless defends LeBron after Draymond's recent critique of him in Play-In Game: pic.twitter.com/vwGdt4bGxE
— UNDISPUTED (@undisputed) April 13, 2023
“Draymond likes to talk about how he is now the new media,” Bayless said. “Well, whether you’re the new or the old, you’re still qualifying yourself as a media member because you’re doing a podcast regularly. It still comes across as being critical of a man that you’re business partners with on Uninterrupted, you are a Klutch client, so you’re also within the confines of his agency. I gotta tell you, it’s offensive to me, that’s stepping out of bounds.”
Bayless went on to claim that there are “certain rules and regulations” Green has to live by.
“For the sake of selling your podcast, there are certain rules and regulations that you’re still going to have to live by where there are going to be boundaries and I think you stepped across a boundary here,” Bayless complained. “You’re trying to sell your podcast, I got it, we all try to do the same thing. But my point is, it felt out of bounds to me, because LeBron does not deserve that from Draymond.”
It’s a interesting sentiment from Bayless who — in many ways — has made a career out of criticizing James and other star athletes across the NBA, NFL and more.
For example, Bayless even found a way to criticize James’ celebratory speech after he became the all-time leading scorer in NBA history earlier this season.
Great acceptance speech by LeBron … but could've done without the concluding f-bomb, even though it summed up his overwhelmed emotion.
— Skip Bayless (@RealSkipBayless) February 8, 2023
On the flip side, Green has been an incredible fan and supporter of James for years. In the last year alone, Green has stated that James is the greatest face of the NBA ever, argued why James is the G.O.A.T. over Michael Jordan and more.
All in all, it’s a pretty intriguing turn of events. It’ll be interesting to see if either James or Green respond to Bayless in any way.
