The Lakers Bronny James goalkeeper goes to the hoop against the goalkeeper of Bucks Aj Green in the first half of a match at Crypto.com Arena last month. Lebron James’ recruit son collected a summit in the 17 -point season in a defeat. (Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)
He made 17 baskets.
He played in the equivalent of less than three complete games.
Seventeen Lakers spent more time on the ground. Sixteen Lakers have scored more points.
It was only a plush stain on the lapel of the Lakers, a little dust at the end of the Lakers bench, a small unrelevant passerby in the long and difficult Lakers travel.
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However, admit it, Bonny James was huge.
The baby Nepo whose arrival last summer was torn in the NBA landscape discreetly exceeded criticism and gradually drowned the noise.
Lakers striker LeBron James obtains a High-Cinq from his son, the caretaker of the Recrue Bronny James, during the presentations before a match against the PĂ©licans in Crypto.com Arena last month. (Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)
The famous son whose selection as 55th choice in the draft of the NBA 2024 was ransacked in this space because “not very intelligent” is in fact part of something that borders ingenious.
I was wrong. I was very wrong. There has been little more things in this season than the Bronny James saga.
He had no impact of the NBA, but it was not a distraction either. Without doubt the most hated and hated recruit in the league at the start of the season, he won the fans, impressed his teammates, inspired his father and silenced the media.
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Close me anyway.
Ten months ago, when the Lakers acquired the eldest son of their best player, I wrote that this decision was an insensitive joke.
Ten months ago, I had the hottest catches.
“It’s not very intelligent,” I wrote. “And, for two of the main people involved, it’s not very fair.”
LeBron James (23) and Bronny James (9) became the first father-son duo to play together in the history of the NBA on March 22, 2024, when they enter a match against Minnesota. (Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)
I concluded my screed with: “Bonny arrives … the circus begins.”
It turns out that the circus has never arrived. The reality is that, in one of its best efforts, the management of the Lakers managed the sensitive situation with agile intelligent.
Everything in this strange arrangement worked, each fear was stifled, all clumsiness disappeared and the Lakers ended up with a fortunately productive father and a gratitude son.
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Bronny James was their most improved player simply by transforming a punch line in, well, a player.
“Since the first day, I have been just impressed by the person he is,” coach JJ Redick told journalists last month. “And to manage … Frankly, Bull – because of whom his father is and simply keep a head on this subject and be a class act says a lot about him, says a lot about this family …”
Maybe it was really cool with Redick from the first day, but for the rest of the league, Bonny’s arrival raised a giant red flag. After all, it was a 19 -year -old child who missed most of his university season while recovering from a heart attack, and suddenly, he received a Lakers uniform and a guaranteed contract?
This initially seemed to be at least in part a stroke of advertisement designed to allow Bronny and LeBron to become the first father-son duo to play together in the NBA. Except that the Lakers did not surprising it the line and indeed allowed it when relatively few people were watching.
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In the second quarter of the opening of the season against Minnesota at the end of October, the city’s attention focused on the Dodgers, the father and the son registered together and played almost three minutes. Bonny returned to the bench for the rest of the night and that was everything.
History made. Moving on to something else. The Lakers won the match and Bonny barely made a undulation. The tone had been fixed. Nothing to do here.
“(I) tried not to focus on everything that is going on around me, and I tried to focus on making a recruit and not trying to spoil,” Bronny told journalists after his beginnings.
He was just trying not to spoil. It was her mantra all season, a commitment filled with respectful humility that framed her image in that of a sympathetic child who was right for hoop.
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He was a baby nepo, but he didn’t act like that. He was the most famous son of the most famous basketball in the world, but he behaved quietly like another stiff lucky.
This attitude quickly became obvious to the fans, who began to applaud him as if he were the adorable mascot of the team, which, in a sense, it was.
The constantly popular song would surface late in the eruptions of the Lakers, when the arenas filled with “We want Bonny!” The most critical recruit in the league has become the most embraced, and even if it did not play in just 22 games and was on the field for the two -digit minutes in only four of them, these cheers resounded.
Was it good? What were you expecting? No, according to NBA standards, with a few rare exceptions, it was not great. In a nightmare match in Philadelphia, when he made 0 for 5 shots while still burned in defense in 15 terrible minutes, he was miles away.
Bronny James and his father LeBron warm up before a match against Atlanta in January at Crypto.com Arena. (Wally Skalij / Los Angeles Times)
But according to equitable standards – playing where it belonged to the G development league in adolescence with essentially no university experience and a story of heart failure – it was promising.
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He played 18 of the 50 games for South Bay Lakers, and his last 11 were strong because he collected on average 22 points, five rebounds and five assists. He scored 30 points or more three times, including 39 points in 38 minutes During a victory at the end of March against the Warriors of Santa Cruz.
While he was standing on the field after this match, the rarely interviewed Bonny offered a convincing overview of his situation.
When asked by spectrmsportsnet what he had tried to prove, he said, “Just that I belong there. That’s all I try to prove. Many people say I don’t do it, but I go out, I work every day, try to improve every day and prove me every day.
So, yes, he admitted, he felt the heat.
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“All the criticisms that are launched to me, it’s just incredible to close all of this and continue,” he said.
During all this time, his father looked at. In fact, perhaps the biggest point to remember from the first year of the son’s appearance is the enormous effect he had on the father.
LeBron openly applauded Bronny, as obvious after the game of 39 points when LeBron tweeted a support note which said, in part, “smile through all of this … Continue !!”
The Lakers goalkeeper, Bronny James, eliminates the ball from the hands of Bucks Kevin goalkeeper Porter Jr. in a match last month. (Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)
Yes, it was in all the caps.
LeBron also fought for his son, Acquire the personality ESPN Stephen A. Smith short of a recent Lakers game and reprimands him for making his criticisms too personal.
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In all, the appearance of Bonny has energized and invigorated LeBron, who is in place to play 71 games, equaling the most since he came to Los Angeles seven years ago.
Statistically, LeBron plays as well as he has ever played as a laker. Defensively, he plays even better, as if each evening he tried to give the example to his son.
His emotional investment in this season was clear from his first comments after Bronny and played him together.
“This moment, we are at the scorer table together and that we record ourselves together, it’s a moment that I will never forget,” said LeBron. “No matter my age, no matter how my memory can fade as an aging or something else, I will never forget this moment.”
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These moments stacked each other to create an equation very different from that most imagined for Bonny and LeBron. Everyone thought that the father would inspire his son. Instead, it’s the opposite.
“I missed a lot of bronny points because of my career during his childhood and high school and high school games and for me to see all the buckets he had as the NBA player with us, to be with him, is super special,” James told journalists in New York in early February. “This is probably the greatest thing that I have never been part of.”
LeBron James, who sat the match because of an injury to the groin, slaps his hands with his son Bonny before a match against Milwaukee. The young James would have a 17 -point summit in a defeat at Crypto.com Arena. (Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)
Almost two months later, Bronny scored 17 in a short -term defeat against Milwaukee, quietly managing his rare success with humility and thanks, cement what everyone had come to believe.
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No matter what’s going on during the rest of the season, the forced and frantic marriage between Bonny James and the Lakers was happy success.
“There is not much that I can do (roughly) people, people at random, talk about me every day,” he told journalists. “I can’t really do much about it, so I’m just going to the gymnasium and I work, I’m lowering my head and I’m trying to improve myself.”
After watching Bronny James do exactly that – to lead, to work hard, to go better – you can actually describe your first season of Lakers with four words that little daring before to chain.
As a father, like his son.
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This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
