Bronny James had an uneven debut with the Lakers on Saturday at the California Classic summer league, writes Anthony De Leon of The Los Angeles Times. The 55th overall pick of last month’s draft, James finished with four points (on 2-of-9 shooting), two assists, two rebounds and a steal in 22 minutes.
“Overall [I need to] just be aggressive, believe in myself and know that I can make plays for myself and my teammates,” James said. “Playing my game on the defensive end, especially because I believe I know how to play.”
“He’s going to play — granted, if he’s healthy — throughout this whole thing,” summer league coach Dane Johnson said, per Dave McMenamin of ESPN. “We’re going to try to integrate him and try to get him as many reps as we can. Because he needs more experience playing. And especially the NBA game. It’s a little different than college, so getting reps in the NBA, in an NBA setting with good players will help him in the long run.”
First-rounder Dalton Knecht also showed signs of rust, De Leon notes, putting up 12 points, four assists, two rebounds and two steals, but going just 3-of-12 from the floor in 26 minutes. The Lakers lost to the Kings by 14 points.
Here’s more on the Lakers:
- ESPN insiders McMenamin, Kendra Andrews and Baxter Holmes provide their takeaways from Bronny’s debut.
- LeBron James was ecstatic that the Lakers drafted his son Bronny, according to Tim Bontemps of ESPN. “For me to see my son to be able to, you know, be in the NBA alone. I mean, it’s always been a dream of his and for us to be side by side … there’s a loss of words, to be honest,” LeBron said after his first practice with Team USA ahead of the Paris Olympics.”I mean, the kid has worked so hard to get back to this point. There’s just so much that’s happened over the last year with him to have this happen less than a year from his incident to be with our friends and our family. When they announced his name, it was something that was super surreal, and it’s kind of still, our family still don’t even have enough words to explain the feeling that we had.” Both LeBron and Anthony Davis — another member of Team USA — were optimistic about the hiring of J.J. Redick as head coach, Bontemps adds.
- Replacing Darvin Ham with Redick has been the Lakers’ biggest offseason move to this point. Will a new coach be enough to improve a team with a roster that’s mostly the same as 2023/24? Mirjam Swanson of The Southern California News Group explores that topic.
- The Lakers are hiring Greg St. Jean as an assistant coach on Redick’s staff, sources tell Michael Scotto of HoopsHype (Twitter link). St. Jean, who was an assistant in L.A. when the Lakers won the title in 2020, has worked for Dallas and Phoenix in recent seasons, Scotto notes.
The media is putting more pressure on Bronny than LeBron. Bronny debut was nothing special and looked like some G league player. Nothing spectacular from him and very raw. The media needs to back away give him a lot of time to be a NBA player. Knecht looks like he is going to need some time to be a NBA player too. Nobody should expect either to make big contribution at the NBA level this year.
I expect both players to play a lot better in their second game.
They better playing against G leaguers. Its like playing against minor league players in baseball
Weird take, this is the 1st game of the 1st Summer league. There are no NBA players on either team, so they’re all draft picks or G leaguers.
“The media is putting more pressure on Bronny than LeBron.” nah that is not true in the slightest. Everyone knows Bronny is mid at best and a nepo signing. Its pretty straightforward. The media is expecting him to be a rotation player but he won’t be there, even being a middling guy for at least 2-3 years at best.
Lebron was on the cover of every sports magazine and espn had a tracker just for him.
Everyone knew Lebron was going to be a top 50 all-timer before he even played a game. No one thinks this about Bronny.
Media is pushing the father and son thing so they have something to talk about. Look at the articles about his first game. They act like it was a big deal.
Yeah I don’t know why people expect the media to be measured about this at all. It involves one of the top players in the history of the NBA, the player who currently generates the most interest, his son, and the Lakers. ESPN turned Tim Tebow and Jeremy Lin into crazy media circuses. Wemby will be lucky to get half the attention as Bronny this season.
This is all LeBron’s fault. He has to have anticipated the media being like this, but he didn’t care. And you can’t really blame them; like him or not Bronny drives views and clicks.
Way too soon to claim you know what they will contribute this season for either of them (although granted, as bad as Bronny was in college it’s unlikely Redick plays him much).
Knecht had an excellent season as the 1st option on the SEC winning Tennessee team (21.7 Pts on 46%/40%/77% splits, 4.9 Reb, 1.8 Ast) that made it to the Elite 8 before losing to Purdue, Knecht had game high 26 pts in that loss.
With the Lakers’ need for shooting he should get rotation minutes by the allstar break if not sooner.
Considering the rest of the league was basically strong-armed into not drafting Bronny, kinda takes all the mystery out of the process.
Still wish the Celtics had drafted him the pick before the lakers took him just to get compensation out of them
“We have your kid hostage.”
“We hold Bronny’s draft rights. You want to trade us something for him, we’re listening, otherwise he’ll play for us or he’s free to explore overseas options”
“YOU PLAY TO WIJ THE GAME!”
This is winning.
In Maine.
Yes, it would of been funny seeing Bronny in Maine and Lebron upset. But lets be honest, Paul would of done something dumb and arrogant and probably put Bronny in Australia where he would of sucked as well.
But that would of been funny to see Lebron cry.
Would have not would of.
I would have called Rich Paul’s bluff. Bonny was not going to Australia.
The other 29 teams were intimidated by Rich Paul’s “request.” The guy has a lot of clout in the league.
Why didn’t Lakers send DLo to Spurs and get DeRozan from Bulls. I know why
There is Strong Mutual interest between Lakers and DeRozan
Nobody wants D’Lo bad contract. lakers should see if they can buy him out because if not it will cost them a 1st round pick to get rid of that contract.
D’lo’s contract is 1 year at $18.7 million as compared to Barnes at 2 seasons at around $20 million. From a purely financial aspect the Spurs would want Russell’s contract over Barnes.
The Lakers wouldn’t have had a PG other than LeBron if they’d traded D’Lo.
Barnes is a much better player than D’Lo. CP3 is the spurs PG this year. Still even trading D’lo the Lakers would need to add another player to the trade since they at that cap and can’t add payroll.
P r o b a b l y the w o r s t take since the last brutally dumb take from you.
@lug if you know somebody that wants D’Lo I suggest you give Rob a call now. He n been trying to dump that contract and found no takes. Let me guess you have a bunch of excuses why you can’t name a team.
> The Lakers wouldn’t have had a PG other than
> LeBron if they’d traded D’Lo.
1. Gabe Vincent (starter for 2022-03 NBA Finalist Miami)
2. Spencer Dinwiddie
3. Jalen Hood-Schifino (last yr’s 1st round pick)
What a joke! Bronny would not have been drafted if it was not for his dad being on the Lakers! LeBron is a joke, to bad because everyone used to like him.
i thought we weren’t doing highlights or box scores here cause this is a rumors website? then how about highlighting the player of the game, unheralded story of adonis arms putting up 32, 11, & 5.
“Uneven” you say???
See i watched that game and I saw this: Bad shooter (geez Lebron is your dad and that is the shooting form you are going with? What no shooting instructors were available? Havin a father who does not let you fail and keeps you in a bubble away from anyone else is probably BAD), small, real small, and got worked on D. Kings guards lit up the Lakers, G League guys were scoring 20 and 30 on the Lakers.
Dalton Knetcht was a little better, but that first game makes me very worried that the league was correct in not drafting him.
Bronny, 22 minutes —> Minus 15. That is not uneven, that is bad.
Came to post basically this exact rundown, haha
Bronny will be mostly in the g league at least a year, with a few random father/son court time in NBA blow outs for show, but this isn’t even Griffey-level as far as father/son pro sports duos go. Ken Sr was mashing with his legendary son in his final season, he had a .780 OPS at 41, that’s awesome. Bronny will never be anywhere near as good at basketball as either Griffey, so that father/son duo isn’t even a match.
The Lakers are going to be very bad this season.
Bronny scored a point. Hang a banner in true Lakers fashion
I saw 5 on 4 with bronny standing in the corner most evey offensive possession. Like just don’t get in way. Complete joke this kid is wearing a nba uniform.
Dalton “Connect” Knecht will end up having a better rookie year than Bronny. He played four years for the UT Vols, and was an excellent shooter here.
Unless Bronny has some weird beast-mode gene from his father that somehow gets activated under other-worldly circumstances, he simply won’t be better, at least in 2024-25, than Connect. Or possibly ever. Time will tell.
You’re talking about the 17th overall pick having a better season that the 55th?
Yeah quite the hot take.
No-where has Lebron said his son was going to be a star NBA player. He only talked about sharing the court and his son finding his own way. Bronny has spent his entire life with his father as one of the greatest NBA players of all time. He has likely felt immense pressure his entire life, as well as people (basketball people) in his ear constantly. It’s only natural for a son to want to make his father and those around him proud. Even making the G-league makes you an elite basketball player relative to the number of people who play worldwide. Never been a fan of Lebron on the court, but this is what good families do for each other. It’s not anyone with the last name James’ fault that the media is allowed to make money selling a narrative and getting clicks at the expense of those they “report on”.
I saw a Facebook post yesterday detailing every poor decision Pelinka has made since being hired and the list was *extensive* and only a few points made were debatable or easily excusable.
I think the franchise will start to grow again when LeBron retires, because without him, there’s no reason to feel further obligation to Pelinka, and they can trade Davis for some pieces with which to start over. But for now, they’re stuck in this window where it’ll take a mammoth effort and considerable luck for the Lakers to make it to/past the first round, and they have no young players around which to build a future. I hope Bronny becomes a solid rotational piece, but I guess we’ll have to see on that.
It’s what bronny can do now… if he wants to be the talk of the nba then he needs to perfom. If not then he will be just another bust of a player coz history suggested even if you’re picked number one you can fail or succeed even if you’re not even drafted. A lot of work. Good thing with him… fail or succeed he is already set for life. Thanks to papa lebron$$$
8 good free agents remaining, Who will getr more than $8M per year?
Trent
T Jones
Bey
Achiuwa
Lowry
Kennard
Okoro
Beverley
*sigh* another comment section of losers hating on a teenager
Most unproductive off season I’ve seen for L.A and I love it. Man lakers stink, can’t wait for this slow motion train wreck.
If Bronny ever wants to make impact in the NBA. He needs to play the point. You’d think he had the knowledge to do that. He’s got plenty time to at least become a solid backup PG.
He just signed a 4 year deal. Meaning he has 4 years to develop into that. You guys are getting riled up on one summer league game.
You miss the part about “plenty time”.
He scored 4 points, that’s right in line with career marks.
“Will a new coach be enough to improve a team with a roster that’s mostly the same as 2023/24?”
No. Who expected that many games and level of play from AD and LBJ?
When the owner started over paying the players that was the start of the end. La will have a tough two years dealing with the situation just because LeBron will not allow his son to be traded while he is there to protect his reputation. Donovan plus a few assets could even thongs out. Maybe after another disastrous year he will opt out and they both go back to Cleveland. When I played I always excelled putting me in front of the rest of the competition
So the Los Angelos Nepos have no one else playing for them but the James family?
I really don’t see this kind of focus on a kid helping them until they have good games… Even just having his name in the title when most of it is LeBron talking about it…
I agree with those that say the media is focusing too much on this kid and even though it comes with a caveat, even just playing NBA minutes with his Dad seems like a long shot unless LA has to tank…