The Los Angeles Lakers selected Bronny James in the second round of the 2024 NBA Draft.
Typically, second-round picks don’t cause much of a stir. And they are rarely the focal points of their teams’ Summer League efforts.
But obviously Bronny is different. As the son of LeBron James he not only received a fully guaranteed contract from the Lakers, but he was also viewed as the marquee talent the organization felt it needed to promote during Summer League.
This produced predictable results.
Bronny played anywhere from bad to average throughout most of his outings. This led to LeBron having to do damage control in the aftermath. The Lakers also came away from the whole thing with one pretty big concern about Bronny.
In addition to all that, Bronny developed something of a bad reputation among his teammates. His selfishness, in particular, became of topic of conversation this week.
“You could feel that there was no unity between this group of guys as Bronny was the main guy and the others didn’t feel that it was right, that he deserved that,” one anonymous Lakers player said.
“I mean, he was treated as someone apart, not like all of us, and that is very annoying as we didn’t feel any chemistry in this group of players… I ended up being very frustrated because I was never put in the best situation or even put in some plays or game plans because they wanted Bronny to show his skills and shine.”
Obviously that quote reeks of saltiness and bitterness, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t true. It genuinely felt like the Lakers were trying everything in their power to one, put Bronny in the best position to succeed, and two, put him on display.
Going forward, the Lakers will need to find a better way to balance keeping LeBron happy regarding Bronny’s usage while also doing what is best for the team.
A longtime sports reporter, Carlos Garcia has written about some of the biggest and most notable athletic events of the last 5 years. He has been credentialed to cover MLS, NBA and MLB games all over the United States. His work has been published on Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, AOL and the Washington Post.