New Los Angeles Lakers coach JJ Reddick doesn’t need to hear about how second-round choose Bronny James was “given” something.
He made that time very clear on Tuesday when James, the fifty fifth general choose within the draft and the son of LeBron James, thanked Reddick and the Lakers entrance workplace for every thing they’ve given him.
“Rob and I didn’t give Bronny something,” said Reddick on Tuesday because the staff launched James and first-round choose Dalton Knecht. “Bronny has earned this. … Bronny has earned this via arduous work.”
James is maybe probably the most talked-about — and controversial — second-round choose in current NBA reminiscence resulting from him being the son of an all-time nice. Whereas James is a promising expertise and was a extremely sought-after recruit going into faculty, there was not a lot from his profession at USC to recommend he would have been drafted if not for the presence of his dad. A minimum of not this season.
Within the years main as much as the 2024 draft, it had lengthy been speculated that James would really like the chance to play within the NBA together with his son, and the No. 55 choose appeared like the plain spot for them to take him. The Lakers wasted little time in doing so once they had been on the clock.
Whereas there isn’t any query James has put within the work, it is arduous to take the Lakers significantly once they faux the father-son relationship did not play a task within the choose. And it is arduous to miss the facility that LeBron has inside the Lakers group proper now. Not solely after deciding on his son within the draft, but additionally given the hiring of Reddick — who had beforehand executed a podcast with James — because the staff’s head coach regardless of the very fact he has no precise teaching expertise.
The Lakers went 47-35 through the 2023-24 season and completed because the No. 7 seed within the Western Convention.