Bronny James Will Spend Time In The G League

After seemingly picking Bronny James at the behest of fulfilling the wish of their star player LeBron James to play with his son, the Los Angeles Lakers may thwart the plans of father and son playing regularly.

According to The Athletic’s Jovan Buha, with the lackluster play of Bronny in the NBA summer league, the team is planning on trying to help him develop his game in the G League instead of on the bench during the regular season. “The Lakers plan on using him primarily in the G League as he remains far from a rotation-caliber player.”

The reactions have been mixed before and after the Lakers drafted Bronny in the second round of the NBA Draft with the 55th pick. As LeBron was headed for free agency and commenting several times over the years about wanting to play in the NBA on the same team as his son, it became abundantly clear that the Lakers needed to draft Bronny to resign the future NBA Hall of Famer. Even James’ agent, Rich Paul was working the phone lines before the draft discouraging teams from picking Bronny.

And although he told teams that to sign Bronny, they have to give him a guaranteed contract instead of a two-way deal, it looks like the rookie will be spending time in the G League since they feel he isn’t exactly NBA-ready.

The doubts from critics started after Bronny’s freshman year at USC (University of Southern California). The freshman averaged 4.8 points, 2.8 rebounds, and 2.1 assists per game. Although some saw those numbers as underwhelming, he chose to enter the draft. During the summer league, Bronny scored 25 points on 10 of 21 shooting over the last two games he played before the team decided to sit him down for the last two games of the summer. He shot 7 for 31 from the field and 0 for 15 from 3-point range in the three games prior to his offensive flourish. He missed one game due to some trace of swelling in his left knee.

“He had two pretty good games last two,” Lakers Summer League coach Dane Johnson said about Bronny. “I think it’s just going to help him going into the summer so we can work on different things with him. Just that confidence and knowing he can play at this level. It’s still going to take a lot of time and a lot of reps.”