Earlier this week, the Los Angeles Lakers made NBA history by signing Bronny James, son of NBA legend and current Los Angeles star LeBron James, to a multi-year guaranteed contract, making the pair the first father and son duo to ever be in the league at the same time, let alone to play on the same team. Bronny James spent one season at UCLA following his time at Sierra Canyon High School and while his statistics weren't exactly eye-popping, he showed enough potential to convince the Lakers that he was worthy of the 55th overall pick in the draft.
Now begins the question of whether or not the younger James will actually contribute much to the Lakers this year at the age of 19. While the general consensus answer to that question seems to be no, one person who has different ideas is none other than FS1 sports media personality and noted James hater Skip Bayless, who found a unique way to criticize his career cash cow recently.
“I think Bronny will be pretty good,” said Bayless, via The Skip Bayless Show on X, the social media platform formerly referred to as Twitter. “I think he'll become a clutch three point shooter. I've always gotten the feeling that Bronny had a bigger clutch gene than his father does. McDonald's game he was in the spotlight. They went to him late two or three times and he just nailed threes. He did not shoot the three well at USC, but I'm giving him a complete and utter pass because I'm knocking on wood for him. He had a serious heart condition.”
Indeed, Bronny James suffered a medical scare in July of 2023 after suffering a cardiac arrest at USC basketball practice; thankfully, he recovered fully from the incident, but it did delay his debut in a Trojans uniform.
What will Bronny's role look like?
It is extremely rare in the modern era for a second round draft pick to get consistent minutes on an NBA roster right when their rookie season begins, especially on a team that has championship aspirations (however much of a long shot they may be) such as the Lakers.
While Bayless predicted in his video that the younger James may get anywhere between 12 to 20 minutes a night, that scenario seems highly unlikely to say the least at this point in time, at least at the beginning of the season. That of course is not going to stop Lakers fans at both home and road arenas from starting chants for newly minted head coach JJ Redick to put James in the game, adding another distraction to a Lakers season that already projects to be full of them.
The bigger question at the moment for the Lakers is how they improve their heavily flawed roster as currently constructed. The answer to that question so far for Rob Pelinka has been to do essentially nothing, and it certainly wouldn't be a surprise to see the Lakers once again in play in territory (or worse) next year if no move is made.
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