Skip Bayless: Kevin Durant Clearly Took a Shot at LeBron James By Calling Him One of the Best Players Ever

LeBron James sat out the Los Angeles Lakers' matchup against the Brooklyn Nets over the weekend, which is too bad because it very well could be one of the final opportunities we get to see LeBron face off against Kevin Durant on the court. The two generational talents are on the back nine of their careers and only play twice a year as foes in opposite conferences. The amount of games left for them to duel is dwindling quickly.

Durant was asked about that after the Nets' loss and laughed that he was glad LeBron missed the game because the Lakers are worse without their best player. He then got serious and gave a fairly thoughtful response about how people are still looking forward to seeing them play even after all these years.

Keen listeners will note that Durant kicked off this soundbite by calling LeBron a top-two or three player of all time. This was undoubtedly an attempt by KD, media savvy as he is, to avoid giving reporters a clickable quote that blows up into a debate about whether Durant thinks LeBron is better than Michael Jordan.

Durant underestimated the content creation skills of Skip Bayless, who said this quote is an "obvious" shot at LeBron and it's clear KD "love-hates" The King.

This is one of those times Bayless is acting like a parody of himself and is probably aware of it but commits so hard to the bit we can't really tell. Admirable and infuriating in equal measures on most days.

Now we just need Durant to chime in on his Twitter account and we will hit the online NBA discourse trifecta.

UPDATE: He did it! We've checked all the boxes, folks. What a day.