Everyone knew that the second decision would be the talk of the town. Instead of LeBron James addressing his retirement rumors, it was about a commercial with Hennessy. The ‘Second Decision’, being an ad, made a lot of people disappointed. Stephen A. Smith, who is a longtime critic of the Lakers’ superstar, made sure to raise his voice on this matter. But not everybody is on the side of the ESPN analyst.

“Get out your feelings brotha Smith yall mad at a joke ..snoop did the same thing with the fake he quit smoking ad.” This tweet comes from Nick Young, who made a valid comparison with Snoop Dog’s viral commercial.

Back in November 2023, the iconic artist released a serious-looking statement, “…I’ve decided to give up smoke.” Snoop added “Please respect my privacy at this time”. Days later, it turned out to be a campaign for Solo Stove. Similarly, this was LeBron James and Hennessy coming together with their take on the infamous ‘Decision’.

As stated, not everybody was a fan of it. Young replied when he saw a video of Stephen A. Smith calling the ad ‘corny. ‘ “I don’t understand why the second-greatest player who ever lived, a four-time champion, a four-time league MVP, one of the greatest players to have ever lived, would stoop to garner attention for himself with something other than trying to win a damn championship,” Smith said. The ESPN veteran also reminded the Lakers superstar how this collaboration could backfire.

“As a matter of fact, if you play like garbage at any point in time when it really really counts, I am gonna think about the Hennessy commercial and wonder if you were drinking something before the game.”

It’s clear that SAS is not on board with the promotion of the commercial. In fact, a long-time Lakers fan, Garcia has apparently filed a lawsuit alleging fraud, deception, and misrepresentation, as per TMZ Sports. But as Young pointed out, it was ‘a joke’ with no ill intentions.

Let’s not forget, even Swaggy P is not afraid to list out the weaknesses of the 4x NBA champion. Previously, the former champion with the Warriors stated,”[LeBron] ain’t doing nothing but guarding the a—- person on each team.”

It’s natural that, being 40 years old and entering his 23rd season in the league, LeBron James is not the tough matchup he once was. Now, Young was able to differentiate the qualities of King James on the hardwood to his latest campaign.

The ‘Second decision’ was a tease which led to much speculation about what that decision might be. The most obvious and popular narrative was that James would be announcing his retirement as he enters his age-41 season.

However, it turned out to be a new campaign for Hennessy, the biggest brand in LVMH’s spirits portfolio and the world’s leading Cognac, with nine-liter case sales of 6.3 million in 2024.

A few other critics and former teammates came out in favor of LeBron James

This off-season is all about the first preseason and camp together for LeBron and his All-Star teammate, Luka Doncic. Both were instrumental in guiding the Lakers to a 50-plus win season in Redick’s rookie season as a coach.

Now, the task would be to perform better than last season’s round 1 defeat in the playoffs. Stephen A. reminded LeBron that it was time to focus on basketball rather than commercials. Like Nick Young, other former players also came in support of the Lakers’ superstar.

First was ESPN’s analyst Kendrick Perkins. In the past, Big Perk also criticized the performance of James, but this instance was different. “It worked. Shoutout to Hennessy. Whoever came up with the concept. Shout out Bron cause it got everybody f—– attention, and everybody’s talking about Hennessy. Don’t matter if they talking about it in a bad way. ‘Oh it’s a f—– Hennessy ad.’ They did their job.”

This sentiment was echoed by others, too, on the Road Trippin podcast.

Former teammates with LeBron, Richard Jefferson, and Channing Frye also praised the commercial and its promotional tactic.

RJ stated, “It was a great job. 10 out of 10.” While Frye wanted this to be thoroughly reviewed. “I cannot wait to do a study on what that deal was to see what he got.”

Going into the historic 23rd season in the NBA, LeBron knows his goals. Currently, a nerve irritation in the glute made him miss the first practice session and even the first two preseason games. But Laker Nation would hope to see him on the opening night.