The Bronny James discourse will never be normal for Lakers

LAS VEGAS — A smile broke across Bronny James’ face for the first time in recent memory, sweat dripping down his brow. He was surrounded by reporters in a hot, humid hallway in the bowels of Thomas and Mack arena, following his Lakers Summer League squad’s long awaited first win. The weight of the world had seemingly been proving cumbersome for the 19-year-old rookie: this particular game marked not only the squad’s first win, but the end to a summer-long three point shooting slump for him. The smile, it was clear, was more than just joy at finally securing his first win as a pro, but a more pressing emotion: relief.

His 12 points would be enough to temporarily quiet the noise, for the night, at least. And the noise has been deafening. To some degree, he’s been dealing with it all his life, as the firstborn son of one of the most famous people on the planet. The scrutiny surely ramped up, though, when LeBron James Sr. started telling the media a few years ago that it was his dream to play with his young namesake: “I need to be on the floor with my boy, I got to be on the floor with Bronny,” the elder James told ESPN in early 2023. He has since dialed that back substantially; in the year leading up to Bronny’s draft eligibility, he backpedaled a bit and reframed his stance as one of support for whatever Bronny chose.

But the rumblings about a possible Ken Griffey Jr/Sr moment in the NBA continued, even as James Jr. suffered a harrowing cardiac arrest at USC last summer, which revealed a congenital heart defect that called into question whether he would ever get to play basketball again, let alone at the NBA level. The teenager was able to make a full recovery, which led to an eventual USC debut last December. Predictably, coming off heart surgery and substantial time away from basketball, the on-the-court results were mixed. USC had its own struggles as a team, and while Bronny showed flashes of NBA promise and exhibited good defensive instincts and a feel for the game, he didn’t look to be the lottery pick he’d been projected coming out of high school, or at least not yet. The talk began to circle around him falling to the second round, or perhaps out of the draft entirely. He would eventually get selected by the Los Angeles Lakers in the second round with the 55th pick, where this fall, he and his father will become the first ever father-son teammates in the NBA.

Father/son angles aside, if Bronny’s name wasn’t LeBron James Jr., one could posit that a kid bouncing back and getting drafted into the NBA less than one calendar year from the literal brink of death on the hardwood would’ve been the feel good story of the draft. Instead, in a “nepo-baby” world where the topic of nepotism itself has been a hot button one of late in Hollywood, the criticism and scrutiny towards James Jr. has never been louder, never been a bigger topic in the zeitgeist, than it has been in the weeks following the draft. It’s understandable that some resentful feelings would come to the surface in a situation such as this, when a child is the clear beneficiary of nepotism, at least to some degree. But the discourse has, it’s fair to say, also gone beyond the pale.

The simple truth is that, in the history of the NBA, a late second round pick has never faced this much criticism heading into his rookie campaign. While it’s true that the Lakers’ decision to offer James Jr. a guaranteed (4 year, $7.9 million dollar) contract and roster spot right out of the gates is also somewhat unusual for a draft pick of his status, his yearly salary tops out at under $2.5 million in the fourth and final year, which also includes a team option. For context, the salary cap in that 2027-2028 final year of his contract is projected to be almost $190 million– so James Jr. ‘s share of that cap, should the team even exercise their option, comprises a little over one percent.

According to the elder James, as he recently told ESPN’s Dave McMenamin, his son is less phased by the chorus of detractors around him than one would assume. “He doesn’t care,” James told ESPN. “I actually care a little bit. When I came in [as a rookie], I wanted people to like me, and some of the things that people were saying about me kind of bothered me early on in my career. … He doesn’t give a fuck.” While Bronny certainly seems to be surprisingly even-keeled through all the hullabaloo, his struggles in his first few summer league outings (both in the California Classic and the higher profile Las Vegas tournament) would indicate that he is not impenetrable. And there have been moments where the constant father/son narratives themselves have appeared to (understandably) grate on the teen as well: while composed, he grew visibly exhausted with the long line of questioning about his father at his introductory press conference, and said he “never” dreamed about playing with his dad when asked if the dream his father famously professed was a shared one. “My dream has always just been to put my name out, make a name for myself, and, of course, get to the NBA.”

Bronny James will not be the basketball player his father is. It’s entirely likely that no one, blood relative or otherwise, ever will. But, at 19 years with a limited college sample size, it’s simply far too early to declare him a bust or undeserving of an opportunity, either.

For a player with his feel on the defensive end, a larger than his height wingspan, high basketball IQ, and yes, pedigree, it was worth a flier with a late second round pick to find out if he might end up being a useful NBA role player. If it doesn’t pan out, he will join the ranks of hundreds of other late second round picks who only step out on an NBA floor a few times before ending up overseas or behind the scenes. TV prognosticators can hand-wring about the signing day and night, but no one truly knows how Bronny’s NBA career will pan out: Father Time, the foe who James Sr. continues to battle, can only tell.

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