Bronny James plays in Westfield, Indiana on May 11 2019. Bronny was selected with the 55th pick of the 2024 NBA Draft. (Photo Credit: Colin Hass-Hill via Flickr)

Bronny James was selected with the 55th pick in the 2024 NBA Draft by the Los Angeles Lakers, which happens to be the same team his father, LeBron James, plays for. Coincidence? I think not!
Bronny played for the University of Southern California last year as a true freshman. He had very mediocre stats for a college player, averaging 4.8 points, 2.8 rebounds and 2.1 assists per game. Compare that with the 55th overall pick in the 2023 draft, Isaiah Wong, who averaged 16.9 points per game and was the ACC Player of the Year and All-ACC First Team.
LeBron, widely regarded as one of the top three greatest NBA players of all time, and Bronnys dad, made it very clear that he wants to play with his son before he retires. Bronny went into the NBA Draft as the 98th ranked player out of 100, and after the combine he climbed to spot 54. I believe that this is due to the fact that many teams thought if they took Bronny that Lebron would come to their team too.
Even with all the potential of getting Lebron there was a lot of risk involved with taking Bronny. Lebron is 39-going-on-40 and is in his 22nd season, while Bronny is an undersized player that doesn’t have the skills to be a true point guard. He did not have a great college career, and his combine games were pretty underwhelming too. The question was if Bronny’s upside and a couple years of an aging Lebron would be worth a second-round pick and boatloads of money?
There is some upside to Bronny: He is the son of one of the greatest athletes of our generation. Yes, Bronnny has inherited some of Lebron’s skills, like his high flying jumping abilities and his explosiveness. He has a very high ceiling but is not even close to reaching it right now.
Even though Bronny has good potential, the Lakers signed him to a 4-year $7.9 million two-way contract with $4.6 million guaranteed is an absolute joke and a disgrace to the NBA. Bronny should be the poster child for nepotism babies. Again, compare this to the 2023 55th overall pick, who got a contract worth just a little bit over $500,000.
We got our first glimpse of Bronny against NBA competition in the Summer League in July. My expectations going into summer league for him were already extremely low, but now I’m almost losing faith in him. He played 4 games, playing 25 minutes a night, and averaged 8.8 points, 3.5 rebounds, and 1 assist per game, while shooting 15% from the three-point line. Bronny was very solid on defense compared to his pitiful performance on the offensive side of the ball. He averaged nearly a steal per game and half a block a game.
I believe that Bronny could be a very solid NBA player in the future, but there was no reason for him to come to the league now. I think that he should have stayed in college for a year or two more. He could have developed his skills into a great 3 and D player but, now it will be a lot harder for him to develop due to the competition he is now playing and the standards people think he should meet.
LeBron knows he doesn’t have many more years in the league and his goal was to play with Bronny. By essentially forcing Bronny into the league early to play with him, LeBron is keeping Bronny from developing into the player he can become and is putting immense pressure on Bronny to be league-ready this year. This shows that LeBron can do whatever he wants and that the NBA is his league.
He has more control over what happens than I think most coaches do: He can trade who he wants, and he can bring anyone he wants to L.A. The league is becoming so soft by him doing this, and sooner or later other players will start doing what LeBron is doing. Bronny James is not an NBA-caliber player and it is a joke that he is even sniffing the league right now. If LeBron is king, then Bronny should be the king of nepotism.