Stephen A. Smith is not the type of guy who asks for help. Especially not from the guy he’s spent years trading barbs with on national television. But before the New York Knicks finally ended their 53-year championship drought in 2026, the First Take host admitted he was ready to swallow every bit of his pride.
“This is how desperate as a New York Knicks fan I was getting,” Smith said on the June 22 edition of the show. “If the New York Knicks had not gone to the NBA Finals, I was gonna come here on national TV and beg LeBron James to come to New York.”
He didn’t just say it once. He repeated it for emphasis, letting the weight of that admission hang in the air. “I was going to do that. And everybody knows, that’s the last damn thing I wanna do, but I was gonna beg LeBron James.”
Smith acknowledged that the whole scheme probably wouldn’t have “worked” but desperation doesn’t care about odds. He had a plan. James was an unrestricted free agent at the time, and Smith figured the Knicks had enough pieces in place that they wouldn’t have needed to gut the roster to make room.
The thing that really had Smith sweating was the growing threat from young teams around the league. The Detroit Pistons were rising. The Oklahoma City Thunder were already a problem. The Houston Rockets weren’t going anywhere. In his words, “desperate times call for desperate measures.”
But here’s the thing. The Knicks didn’t need LeBron. They went out and won the whole thing anyway, taking down the San Antonio Spurs in the Finals. That first title since 1973 didn’t just end a drought. It validated an entire rebuild and gave a tortured fanbase something they’d never seen in their lifetimes.
James, meanwhile, is heading into his 24th NBA season. He’s spent the last eight years with the Los Angeles Lakers, with two stints in Cleveland and one in Miami before that. He’s got four rings. He doesn’t need the Knicks and they don’t need him now that they’ve already proved they can win without him.
The question moving forward is whether New York even thinks about shaking up its core after winning it all. They have a solid starting five. Chemistry that actually works. A fan base that finally feels like the wait was worth it. Bringing in a 40-something LeBron would be a massive story but it would also be a massive gamble. The Knicks might just be better off running it back with the guys who got them there.
Smith certainly won’t be the one lobbying for it now. He got his championship and he didn’t have to beg anyone for it.
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