Michael Rapaport dropped by CBS Sports Radio on Thursday to discuss his new book, This Book Has Balls: Sports Rants from the MVP of Talking Trash, but first he opened up about his beef with LeBron James.
This isn’t a joke, either. This is genuine.
“At the 2011 Celebrity All-Star Game, (which) I am a former MVP of, he was rude to me and to my kid,” Rapaport said on The DA Show. “It was blatant. It was obvious. And I articulate in one of the chapters 23 reasons why LeBron James will never be like Mike. That’s just one of the reasons. Obviously he’s a great player, but I think a lot of his shenanigans off the court and manipulating the situation for his benefit really will eventually detract from his greatness on the court.”
It seems odd that James would be rude to Rapaport, but apparently they have common friends – or friends of friends – who had a beef with one another, possibly involving a female.
“I have no idea why he did (it), but . . . none of that makes a difference,” Rapaport said. “They’re young kids. They don’t want any sneakers. They didn’t want a picture. You could give them a smile and a pound and keep it moving.”
Despite the beef, Rapaport acknowledged that James could be the second-greatest player of all-time.
“Oh yeah, he might be,” Rapaport said. “There’s no argument of how great he is as a basketball player. Michael Jordan is No. 1, period. Kobe might be No. 2. Magic Johnson might be No. 2. It could be LeBron James. It’s so subjective who your favorite is. Are they part of your team? Did they beat your team? (Is it) statistics? The eye test? It’s hard to say who’s the best. Some people might not even say Michael is the best. I think that’s why we all love sports. That’s one of the reasons I wrote the book – because it’s a never-ending sort of thrill-of-victory, agony-of-defeat struggle for all of us. Who you love, who you don’t love, what’s happening with your team, and this and that.”
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