The bet the Lakers made on Bronny James always carried a tremendous amount of baggage, their second-round draft pick impossible to separate from the team’s star who made no secret about wanting to play with his son.
Bronny James’ first NBA appearance happened on opening night, long before he was ready. His first points, in Cleveland, came when the game had been decided. And his early G League outings were only mildly encouraging, if at all.
Yet after fading from the spotlight because of a heel injury that cost him multiple weeks, James returned to the Lakers’ South Bay roster, surprising plenty of people by playing road games, not to mention the numbers he produced.
In his last three G League games, James has averaged 20.7 points on 43.1% shooting while showing flashes of being the kind of defender the Lakers hope he can develop into. James will play for the South Bay Lakers in the NBA’s G League showcase this week in Orlando.
“What we’ve stressed with him throughout the summer, preseason, early season was getting himself into elite shape so that he could be a high-level impact player on the defensive end,” Lakers coach JJ Redick said after practice Tuesday. “And then he has the heel injury and has to lose some of that momentum. [But] we’re excited about what he’s done over the last two games and looking forward to see what he does in the lineup.”
James’ real breakout game came Thursday, when he scored 30 points (and took 23 shots) in a game. He followed it up with 16 points the next time he played.
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“Just keep stacking the days, keep putting in the work. The work always prevails at the end of the day,” LeBron James said Sunday of the message to his son. “It’s just great to see him getting back into the flow, getting back to his game, getting back to him just playing free and going out and just playing the game that he loves and knows how to play. I loved his aggressiveness. He was aggressive from the beginning in both games all the way up to the end.”
The aggressiveness part is a challenge with Bronny James’ personality. It was a knock scouts used against him in the evaluation process before college. But it, like anything else Redick said, can be learned if the motivation is there.
And team-wide, Redick said he knows how he has to motivate his players.
“It’s not a punishment, it’s … you’re either going to do the things we’re asking you to do and you’re going to play or you’re not going to do those things and you’re not going to play” Redick said. “It’s very simple. And that’s just the way I’m going to coach the basketball team going forward. So I think not just for Bronny, we, what we envision for him to be able to play and impact winning, he’s got to be able to baseline, do those things. It’s no different than Max Christie or Dalton [Knecht, the Lakers’ first-round pick]. And if you do those things, you will be rewarded with play.
“… The development process, if you’re clear with what you want and you’re doing those things that we ask, you’re going to get rewarded. So that’s in some ways how you teach it.”
Redick said Tuesday that coaching Bronny James is different because his situation is different than any other player who has entered the NBA. None of them had LeBron James for a father.
“He’s got to get to the point where it’s OK to fail,” Redick said. “I think he has a real reservation to fail. I think a lot of that is he’s had a camera on him since when he was 8 years old. I can’t, I can’t imagine [my sons] Knox and Kai having cameras at their rec league games. I think once he develops that, he’s gonna take off, like literally take off. He will do anything he’s asked to do. He’s done everything we’ve asked him to do.
“It’s just really part of player development, not just the physical skills and the physical development, but it’s the mental development as well.”
Christie said the pressure on any young player is magnified in a Lakers uniform, not to mention one with “James Jr.” on the back.
“Being on the Lakers brings a lot of added stuff just cause we’re the biggest franchise in the world,” Christie said. “… It’s tough to fail on the Lakers because I feel like every mistake you make, at least I felt like this my rookie year and even last year a little bit, is highlighted in bold.”
Christie has come out of that some, even this season, using the experience from a bad decision to foul at the end of the Lakers’ loss to Oklahoma City to improve in clutch situations.
“It was not easy to fail,” he said. “I felt like it was really tough. You’re looking on social media and all these negative comments and stuff like that. And so, I’ve learned to adapt and grow where I stay off of that now, for the most part. And also, inward with myself and my own voice in my head, my own confidence, my own self-esteem, learning that it’s OK to fail and knowing that you have to fail before you succeed. Failure is a stepping stone for success. You learn, you grow from it.
“I don’t know of any really talented person that has just had success all of their life. They failed at certain points in the spotlight. They failed in the dark. So you’re gonna fail at some point and you just have to take it on the chin and find a way to just get better.”
Read more: Max Christie makes his case to be Lakers’ next stopper
The Lakers and Christie think Bronny James can do that.
“I mean, the kid’s a good player, man. I mean, regardless of what everybody says about him, ‘He’s not good enough. Yada yada yada.’ The kid’s a good player,” Christie said. “He wouldn’t be here if he wasn’t. So he’s grown a lot just being with us. I think having LeBron as someone that’s around him a lot, he’s learned. Obviously, he’s known a lot coming into this stuff. And then adding him into a team setting too, he’s asking a ton of questions, he’s being attentive to details, and you can see him kind of picking up a rhythm a little bit in the G League now.
“So, obviously, like I said earlier, you’re going to fail before you succeed and everybody has their own separate journey. And it just so happens that his is really in the spotlight. But some people don’t realize it takes time for somebody to get accustomed to something new, especially at the professional level. So he’s just taking his time. He’s taking his own steps. He’s going through his own journey and we all believe in him. Everybody in this organization believes in him. So that’s all you need for a young guy.”
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This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
