An interview was scheduled, but before it, he told Lakers public-relations staff he couldn’t quite place a face with my name. He knew I wrote about his childhood at the Akron, Ohio, private school he attended when his dad played for the Cleveland Cavaliers, but otherwise, he needed a memory jolt. So, after a recent Lakers win, in the locker room, I was called over to say hello ahead of our discussion the following day.
As soon as Bronny saw me, his face lit up as though he remembered. I saw the same smile I recalled from when he was just a boy, dribbling circles around his friends on the court after a Cavs win. I saw the same grace from the time his grandmother ordered him to remove all the luggage off the conveyor belt at the airport after a family trip (we were on the same flight), instead of having Cavs security do it, and he obliged without complaint. I witnessed the same politeness from when Bronny was a freshman at the University of Southern California, recovering from a major health scare, and he stopped in the Lakers press room during a game and spoke in conversation with “yes, sir” and “no, sir.”
But was the 20-year-old, 6-foot-2 shooting guard standing in front his locker, shaking my hand and making jokes, the same basketball player I saw just five months ago join LeBron James, the league’s all-time leading scorer and proverbial “face of the NBA” for more than a decade, as the only father-son duo to play in the same game in NBA history?
No, I can’t say he was the same. This version of Bronny James is better.
“I definitely think I’ve improved, not only as a player, but just having a different mindset as a player to go out and play my game and play the game that I know how to play,” he said. “I feel really good about it — I see the progress.”
It’s not just Bronny, or me, for that matter, who thinks so. The Lakers say Bronny has improved this season, the confidence he’s playing with when he’s on the court in the NBA suggests it, and the numbers he’s put up in the G League insist it’s true.
As of this writing, Bronny appeared in 20 NBA games for the Lakers, averaging 1.7 points and shooting just 26 percent from the field in about five minutes per game. Now, if you haven’t seen him, you may be thinking, “This is an improvement?” Hold on a sec.
In a recent, close loss to the Denver Nuggets, the Lakers were without several of their rotation players, including Bronny’s dad and new Lakers superstar Luka Dončić. Coach JJ Redick turned to Bronny for 16 game minutes, and though he made just one of the five shots he took, his bucket was a crucial 3-pointer in a pressure situation. He also got to the foul line and turned in a steal.
“It’s great that JJ had the level of trust to throw him into a big game the other night at Denver, which is a tough place to play, and he got in the game, made a couple defensive plays, made a corner 3, and I think that’s what he prides himself in is the 3-and-D type of archetype,” Lakers general manager Rob Pelinka said. “And for him to be doing it in moments in NBA games, that’s great that he’s even grasped that already.”
Redick added that Bronny “has been fantastic in practices” lately, his confidence and aggression have grown, and his “biggest area of improvement is probably his playmaking, and I don’t just mean that in terms of passing, but just his ability to play on and off the ball as a decision-maker — either a scorer or a passer.”
So that’s what the big-league Lakers think of their second-round draft pick, taken 55th overall in June. They see an improved, young player deep on their bench, which is where he should be at this point in his career. Any outside suggestion or expectation that Bronny, who missed half of his lone college season recovering from cardiac arrest suffered during a summer practice caused by a congenital heart defect, would do more for the Lakers than what he’s done this season was off base.
But his growth in the NBA’s minor league, the G League, is more substantial. In 16 games for the South Bay Lakers, Bronny is averaging 17.4 points on 31 percent shooting from 3-point range, with 4.2 rebounds and 4.3 assists in 30 minutes per game.
