Report: Bronny James will only play home games in G-League

Report: Bronny James will only play home games in G-League

While the 2024-25 NBA Season is three weeks old, the G-League season tipped off over the weekend, with Los Angeles Lakers second-round pick Bronny James making his well-anticipated debut with South Bay.

James didn’t particularly impress, scoring just six points on 2-of-9 shooting with four assists, three rebounds and five turnovers in 31 minutes against the Salt Lake City Stars (Jazz G-League). Regardless of the stat line, him getting live-game reps are essential. However, ESPN NBA insider Brian Windhorst reported Wednesday that James may only be a part-time player throughout the G-League season, and not in the way you might think.

“I’m gonna apply the brakes on my ‘everything is fine on the Bronny front’ with this thing that is now happening, which is that from my understanding, he’s only gonna play in the South Bay Lakers home games, that he’s only gonna kind of be a part-time G League player,” he said on the latest episode of The Hoop Collective podcast Wednesday.

Few people in the media industry are as close with LeBron James, Bronny’s father, as Windhorst, so there is some credibility here. It’s confusing why the Lakers would go about his development this was, and Windhorst was quick to point out why opposed it, too.

“Honestly, I know he was getting somewhat special treatment and nepotism, that’s fine. I don’t care. It’s normal. Now, I think it’s actually detrimental to him. I don’t like that. I don’t know whose idea it was. Obviously the Lakers are fine with it, they’re doing it. On this particular instance, I think that’s gone too far, and I don’t think that benefits Bronny, I don’t think it benefits the South Bay Lakers and I don’t think it benefits LeBron at that point.”

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Bronny James has barely played over 500 total minutes of basketball since high school–that’s not very much. He underwent a terrifying health scare in the Summer of 2023, which kept him out of part of the 2023-24 season at USC.

The Lakers drafted him No. 56 overall in the 2024 NBA Draft to play with LeBron, over the likes of Keshad Johnson, Jalen Bridges, Trey Alexander, PJ Hall and Justin Edwards, among others. James played very brief minutes in a pair of Lakers regular season games before getting shipped to the G-League.

Perhaps the Lakers want him to get more reps with the NBA developmental staff and not the G-League when they’re on the road? Maybe they’re trying to limit his initial workload after having not played much basketball over the last year? There could be a multitude of reasons, though I don’t see why he shouldn’t be getting live game reps with South Bay. That’s crucial to anyone’s development at that stage–especially his.

That’s not even touching how bad this could be from a PR standpoint, but that’s neither here nor there. The Lakers have a method to the madness, even though I’m questioning how conducive it is to his short- and long-term success. I guess we’ll see how it works out, shall we?

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