Bronny James started his first preseason game on Friday night and made the most of the opportunity, scoring 17 points while adding four rebounds, three steals, an assist and a block against the Golden State Warriors. It was by far the best he has looked in his brief NBA career.
The efficiency won’t jump off the page. Bronny missed 10 of his 17 shots and four of his five 3-pointers, but after opening the preseason 4 for 20, this was basically an inferno. Bronny was as aggressive and as confident as anyone could’ve hoped for given his struggles to this point.
And this wasn’t against a scrub squad. The Warriors didn’t play Stephen Curry, but they played the rest of their guys in a 132-74 blowout win. He was an active cutter, finished in transition with a lob dunk and pretty acrobatic scoop layup, and he was especially effective in his escape dribble attacks against closeouts to get to runners and pull-up jumpers.
You can already feel the Twitter fires burning with this performance — half the people dismissing it as a preseason nothing, half the people ready to anoint him as the legitimate NBA player his critics have so vehemently asserted he is not. Neither is true.
There’s no denying Bronny looked pretty good on Friday. That’s a real thing that happened on an NBA court against high-level NBA players. There’s also no denying that he has a long way to go before he can contribute meaningful minutes to the Lakers or any NBA team.
The Lakers have been outscored by 60 points when he’s been on the floor during the preseason. But that won’t be the metric by which he is evaluated heading out of this initial batch of outings. No metric will be relevant, in fact. This is all about experience and hopefully building on positive performances like the one that he put together on Friday, and probably even more telling will be the way he’s playing and growing in practice.
“I think for him and all our younger players, they’re all building blocks … not just the good moments, the bad moments are learning opportunities,” Lakers coach JJ Redick said. “I think you have to have a level of patience, a level of optimism. I am very confident in the level of work that our young guys have had.
“I think for [Bronny],” Redick continued, “I’m sure it felt good to have 17 points; I’m not even remotely concerned about that. It’s not even on my radar. We’re trying to help him grow into a great basketball player. I’m sure he feels good about [the scoring] and he should. That’s important for I think every basketball payer that’s ever touched the court, to score points. But some of the other things, I’ve seen real improvement and attention to detail. I’ve seen that from all our young guys. I’m encouraged by it.”
Redick was then asked about the manner in which Bronny, as just a 20-year-old, has handled the spotlight that comes with being LeBron’s son in a Lakers uniform some don’t think he’s earned and all that entails.
“Yes, he’s a very grounded young man who is very coachable and has a very good head on his shoulders,” Redick said. “A couple conversations that I’ve had with him just about what it’s like to be him … I’m sure there are some amazing things that come with being him. There are probably some hard things that come with being him, too. I think he’s handled it with a lot of class and grace. I’ve said this a number of times, he’s a pleasure to coach.”
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