For an all-time great NBA player, LeBron James has remarkably few enemies. He’s as competitive as anyone, but perhaps not as prone to pettiness and vindictiveness as some comparable legends. If you want to maintain a real beef with LeBron, you’re going to have to put in a lot of work. DeShawn Stevenson did that.
Throughout the 2000s, Stevenson was a solid, but not-quite-star level wing player for some quality teams. He was also a bit of a character — as famous for his antics on-court and off as he was for his play. At some point when he was with the Wizards, Stevenson caught wind of something nasty LeBron had said about him, and didn’t let it go. At the first available opportunity — a game-winner LeBron missed over him toward the end of the 2007-08 season — Stevenson lashed out, calling him overrated. James saw that and responded by saying the insult was like if Soulja Boy called Jay-Z overrated.
And from there things... just... spiraled. Before long, there was a heated Cavaliers-Wizards playoff series, an actual feud involving both Soulja Boy and Jay-Z, fake Facebook posts, and more. Watch the video above for the full, very weird DeShawn Stevenson-LeBron James beef history.