Blake Griffin could not resist a joke at LeBron James’ expense and he used one of James’ most famous moments to do it.
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On the latest episode of his show, The Stepback with Blake Griffin, the former NBA star took a look at how youth sports have turned into a multibillion-dollar industry. To explain how it happened, he played a clip from a 2025 episode of Mind the Game, LeBron’s podcast with Steve Nash.
“My buddy Steve Nash summed it up pretty well,” Griffin said.
In the clip, Nash explains how children previously had opportunities to participate in different sports throughout the year. Nash described how that experience has changed as youth sports have become increasingly commercialized.
“When I grew up, you play soccer and hockey in the winter, you play baseball, box lacrosse in the summer, and it costs you like 100 bucks a season for each sport,” Nash said. “Well, somebody, some entrepreneur, someone says, well, I need to make a business of this. Said, well, if I can sell the dream to the family, the little Sarah or Johnny, you know, they might have a chance to go somewhere with this, but they got to commit to this sport for the year.”
LeBron, who was still with the Los Angeles Lakers at the time, jumped in. “Yeah. That’s the worst thing you can do, right?”
That reaction gave Griffin the opening to bring up the meme.
“Okay, first off, do you know how bad something has to be for LeBron James to call it the worst thing you can do?” Griffin said. “When he’s already got a meme about the worst thing you can do. Just shoot it. It’s right there. Just shoot it.”
As Griffin spoke, the meme he was talking about was shown. It was LeBron James’ reaction to J.R. Smith in Game 1 of the 2018 NBA Finals.
With the score tied in the final seconds of regulation, Smith got an offensive rebound, and instead of shooting to try and get the win, he dribbled the ball away from the basket as the time ran out.
James spread his arms in disbelief, and the Cleveland Cavaliers ended up losing the game to the Golden State Warriors in overtime. This despite James scoring 51 points. That image of LeBron talking to Smith quickly became a meme.
But coming back to why the clip was shown. Griffin agreed with LeBron and Nash.
Pushing young kids into one sport all year round, known as early sports specialization, has become a big part of youth sports, and Griffin argued it does more harm than good. He said 70% of kids drop out of organized sports by age 13, and cited a National Federation of State High School Associations finding that single-sport athletes suffered 60% more new lower-body injuries than kids who played multiple sports.
He also talked about his own career. Griffin said that when he was in the NBA, team doctors used to tell him to take a month off from basketball after every season so that he could reset mentally and physically.
Griffin also talked about how, while growing up, his father, a basketball coach, didn’t make him stick to one sport. His father let him play baseball, basketball, football, soccer and volleyball, too. It ended up doing wonders for him and his career. He went on to become the No. 1 pick, Rookie of the Year and a six-time NBA All-Star.
But keeping the meme and the dig aside, he and James ended up making the same point.
In youth sports, the worst thing one can do is force a kid to pick one sport, when they should be allowed to play as many as they want.