Bronny James and his father, LeBron James, made history on opening night as the first-ever father/son duo to play in an NBA Game together. Since then J.J. Redick has been able to find some other garbage time minutes for Bronny across three other games, he even scored a bucket (back where he was born, in Cleveland).
However, the play was always for him to spend most of this season in the G-League — Bronny is a development project and needs the time on the court and attention he can get at that level. That will start this weekend when the Lakers assign Bronny to the South Bay Lakers, the team’s G-League affiliate, a story Shams Charania of ESPN reported first. Bronny will be on the Lakers bench Friday night at home against the 76ers then play for the South Bay Lakers on Saturday.
For at least the start of the G-League season, Bronny will only play for the South Bay Lakers when they are home, not travel with the team, according to Charania. He likely will shuttle back and forth between the teams, practicing more with the G-League squad in the coming weeks. After Saturday’s game, South Bay doesn’t play at home again until the following Sunday (Nov. 17), but the Lakers host the Grizzlies in that time (Nov. 13) — in a bit of a grudge match — and Bronny could be on Laker bench for that game. He will shuttle up and down.
This is what Bronny needs. It was no secret when the Lakers drafted him that Bronny is not an NBA-level player right now, he is a development project who needs to work on his shot (1-of-6 during his NBA minutes, as an example), his handle, and even the defensive end of the court that is seen as his strength — guarding the bigger, faster players of the NBA has been a challenge for him so far. He has NBA potential, it was always going to take time for it to come out, this is part of that process and will be for this season and, very possibly, part of next season as well.
Lakers nation is not exactly known for its patience, but it will need to find it with Bronny. His time in the G-League is good for him and the Lakers.
