LeBron James Shades Stephen A. Smith, He's 'On a Taylor Swift Tour Run' After Spat

The beef between LeBron James and Stephen A. Smith is still clearly sizzling ... the Lakers superstar just shaded his nemesis on live TV -- with a Taylor Swift quip!

The King joined Pat McAfee on Wednesday's episode of "The Pat McAfee Show" for a lengthy sit-down interview ... and at one point, his now-viral, in-game spat with Stephen A. came up.

James quickly took a dig at the ESPN analyst to kick off the topic ... dissing the 57-year-old for the way he's gone on multiple television shows to talk about their March 6 Crypto.com Arena quarrel.

"He's, like, on a Taylor Swift tour run right," LeBron said, which garnered loud laughter from the room.

He then went on to criticize the hoops commentator for basking in the limelight that came from the incident.

"It started off with, 'I didn't want to address it,'" LeBron said, "'but since the video came out, I feel the need to address it.'"

"Motherf***er," he continued, "are you kidding me? If there's one person that couldn't wait for the video to drop so you can address it, it's your ass."

James said he was not upset with Stephen A. for criticizing Bronny James' on-court play, but rather, he thought the guy just got too personal with his remarks about his son.

"It's my job to not only protect my damn household," LeBron said, "but protect the players."

He then lamented that bringing the matter back into the public eye would give Stephen A. more attention.

"He's going to be happy as hell," the elder James said.

For Stephen A.'s part, while he has appeared on public airwaves seemingly weekly to break down the altercation, he did seem to soften his stance on the James family last week ... when he admitted he "might've been wrong" about Bronny's skillset.