EL SEGUNDO — Media days around the NBA are a wasteland for anyone looking for actual information on the record. Rather, they have the vibe of a PR puff piece. For example, on Wednesday, Lakers general manager Rob Pelinka and coach J.J. Redick spoke to the media, with Pelinka saying he would be willing to trade both available Lakers first-round picks (2029 and 2031) in a deal that furthered “sustained Lakers excellence.” Which is a lot of words to say they would do it for the right star player, something that everyone around the league has known — and has been written about extensively here and elsewhere — since before last February’s trade deadline.
There was one interesting story, however, when Pelinka was discussing the first NBA father/son duo of LeBron and Bronny James, and the challenges that presents.
“Maybe the challenge is on Bronny when, like in our pickup game, I think it was yesterday or two days ago, he got switched on to LeBron, and LeBron took him baseline and up and under off the glass,s and the words exchanged afterward were probably more challenging than anything else,” Pelinka said.
Oh how we wish there was public video of that. LeBron responded to Pelinka’s quote on Instagram, “Great defense. Better O.”
As for when LeBron and Bronny might play together on an NBA court, Redick said there is nothing formal in place.
“We don’t have anything planned, per se, in terms of a commitment to do it this way,” Redick said. “We obviously have talked about it as a staff, and we’ve gotten it into some specifics of what that might look like, but we haven’t committed to anything. And obviously there’s a discussion to be had once we’re all together with Bronny and LeBron too, they should be a part of that discussion as well.”
Many around the league expect the Lakers to play them together for a few minutes early in the season — maybe on opening night against Minnesota at Crypto.com Arena. The G-League season doesn’t start until a couple of weeks after the NBA season, playing the family members together early gives Los Angeles a chance to get this potentially distracting issue done with and out of the way, vastly reducing the questions when Bronny spends most of his season with the South Bay Lakers (which is where he needs to be developing his game).
Redick had nothing but praise for Bronnie.
“Bronnie, I feel very fortunate that I get to coach him because he’s young and he’s hungry and he’s got a lot of inherent skill sets that we can really mold into a really good NBA player,” Redick said. “On top of that, he’s a fantastic kid. He’s extremely coachable. He’s got the right spirit and energy every single day.”
That’s what coaches and GMs say about players on media day, in Bronny’s case let’s hope it’s reality and he molds into a quality player down the line.