How Bronny James looked in Lakers’ summer league debut vs. Kings

The Los Angeles Lakers had one of the most intriguing picks in the 2024 NBA Draft as Los Angeles selected Bronny James with their second round pick. Bronny is the son of Lakers star LeBron James, and LeBron has always wanted to play with his son. His wish came true when the Lakers selected him with the 55th overall pick. A lot of players thought that Bronny might go undrafted after his poor USC basketball season, but that wasn’t the case, and he made his NBA summer league debut on Saturday.

Last season was a tough one for Bronny James as he was a freshman on the USC basketball team. Bronny came to the Trojans as one of the top recruits in his recruiting class, but things never really panned out for him there. It all got off to a rough start as Bronny suffered a scary cardiac arrest incident during his first offseason with USC, and he had to miss a lot of time because of that.

Bronny was able to recover from the incident and he ended up being able to play for most of the USC season. However, he missed out on a lot of valuable offseason time. Those first few months of workouts and practices are crucial for a true freshman in college, and Bronny missed a lot of that. That likely contributed to his underwhelming season.

When Bronny committed to USC, the expectation was that he was going to play for one year and then go to the NBA and play with LeBron, either on the same team or a different one. That did end up happening, but things didn’t go how most people expected during that one season with the Trojans.

Bronny James averaged just 4.8 PPG last season with USC, and after the quiet year, a lot of people thought that he might return to USC for another year. However, he entered his name in the draft, and now he gets to play with his dad. A lot of people believe that he would have gone undrafted if the Lakers didn’t get him. Now, he is with Los Angeles, and he just had his first summer league game.

Bronny James’ summer league debut was quiet

The Lakers got summer league action started on Saturday with a 108-94 loss to the Sacramento Kings. Bronny James’ performance in his summer league debut looked a lot like his USC basketball games. It was pretty quiet. He didn’t score a lot of points as he struggled a bit shooting and finished with just four points. He was 2-9 from the floor. Bronny did have a couple of highlight plays as he had a good steal on the defensive end, and he hit a nice mid-range shot. He also added two assists and two rebounds. At the end of the day, his performance was what most people expected it to be.

If Bronny didn’t light up the box score at USC, he likely won’t do it right away in the NBA summer league either. If he does have any role on this Lakers team, it is not going to be a big one, so no one is really expecting him to be putting up big numbers right now.

Transitioning from high school to college basketball is tough, and Bronny James never really seemed to fully finish that transition. Now, he is all of a sudden transitioning to the NBA as well. It’s all happening very fast, and growing pains are to be expected. James might struggle at first, but that doesn’t mean that he won’t be able to turn things around.