Skip Bayless and Stephen A. Smith reignite their feud over LeBron James' Lakers.

Stephen A. Smith and Skip Bayless are back on “First Take” together Thursday morning.

And per usual, these two got into a heated argument.

This time the debate was about whether the Los Angeles Lakers are better off without LeBron James.

“Isn’t that obvious to you?”

Bayless said when Smith posed the question.

“No!” Smith said.

“I believe that Luka Dončić got sick and tired of having to share the stage with a LeBron James who couldn’t live up to being LeBron James anymore, as he hit 40 years of old,” Bayless added.

“Oh my god,” Smith responded while putting his hand over his face.

Bayless then praised Dončić for developing his game and working on his weaknesses over the years, including his physical shape and his defense.

“Now the stage has been cleared of a LeBron James who, I’ve gotta say this, his LA tenure was completely overrated,” Bayless added.

The debate about whether the Lakers are indeed better off without King James will likely continue throughout this season.

But witnessing Bayless and Smith — who worked together on “First Take” for four years until Bayless departed for Fox Sports in 2016 — reignite their rivalry over the LeBron-Lakers debate feels nostalgic for sports fans, regardless of which side of the debate they’re on.

This reunion comes just one day after Bayless made headlines for a separate controversy involving Dallas Cowboys defensive tackle Quinnen Williams.

On Wednesday, Bayless went on “First Take” and delivered an explosive take on the Cowboys’ defense following Sunday’s loss to the Arizona Cardinals.

He built it off comments Williams made to reporters earlier in the week, when the Dallas defensive tackle stressed that players needed to be better in their execution, repeating the word “execute” throughout his interview.

“Quinnen Williams used the word execute 32 times,” Bayless said.

“I must tell you that during Sunday’s collapse against the Arizona freaking Cardinals, I wanted to execute several of my players during the game, Execute them on the field. I wanted them to be executed.”

The clip drew significant backlash.

Williams took to social media to respond himself.

“It’s extremely crazy to say you wanted players on defense to be executed. You got to do better, my guy,” Williams wrote on X, tagging Bayless.

Before Thursday’s post, Williams’ most recent one was a promotional post for Raising Cane’s, where he serves as an ambassador.

Before that, his previous tweet dated back to February.

Williams isn’t someone who lives on social media.

Chances are he heard about the comments and decided he wasn’t going to stay silent.

So what did Williams say to reporters in the first place?

“I think the biggest thing is execute,” Williams said of the Cowboys defensive struggles.

“We got to execute. We haven’t been executing this whole season, and we executed for three quarters (against Arizona) and didn’t execute the last quarter, and the film says it all.”

“So, I think the biggest thing we got to focus on is execute and continue to stack days, and at the end of the day we got to execute.”

Bayless has said a lot of controversial things in his time on television.

But this comment — about wanting to execute players on the field — may have been one of his most extreme.

We know he wasn’t serious because Skip couldn’t hurt a fly, but there are better ways to get your point across than saying you want to execute another human being over a football game.

The Cowboys defense collapsed late against the Arizona Cardinals.

And when Skip Bayless turned a postgame word from Quinnen Williams into shock TV, the veteran defensive tackle had something to say.

I try to avoid writing about anything Skip Bayless says these days, because that is exactly what he wants you to do.

When a TV show lacks anything resembling serious analysis, shock statements must be what keeps the ratings up.

But given the response from Dallas Cowboys All-Pro defensive tackle Quinnen Williams, I felt this was worth an exception.

On Thursday, Bayless went on ESPN’s First Take and delivered an explosive, and frankly out-of-line, take on the Cowboys’ defense following Sunday’s loss to the Arizona Cardinals.

He built it off comments Williams made to reporters earlier in the week, when the Dallas defensive tackle stressed that players needed to be better in their execution, repeating the word “execute” throughout his interview.

“Quinnen Williams used the word execute 32 times,” Bayless said.

“I must tell you that during Sunday’s collapse against the Arizona freaking Cardinals, I wanted to execute several of my players during the game, Execute them on the field. I wanted them to be executed.”

This is the kind of shock commentary Bayless throws on air to generate controversy.

And even though he clearly didn’t mean it literally, that doesn’t make it an appropriate comment.

Quinnen Williams responds on social media

The clip drew significant backlash, and Williams took to social media to respond himself.

“It’s extremely crazy to say you wanted players on defense to be executed. You got to do better, my guy,” Williams wrote on X, tagging Bayless.