LeBron James and his son Bronny James will become the first-ever father-son duo to share the floor for the same NBA team. It was the dream that LeBron James first floated a few years ago, the notion of playing in the NBA alongside one of his sons.
And it’s now a step closer to reality.
Bronny James – the oldest son of the NBA’s all-time scoring leader and four-time champion – was drafted on Thursday by the Los Angeles Lakers, the team that his father has played for since 2018. Bronny James was taken with the No 55 overall pick, deep in the second round and with only three picks remaining in this year’s draft.
As the second round progressed, ESPN reported that Rich Paul, who represents both father and son, was calling teams to tell them not to draft Bronny. “Rich Paul is calling teams [telling them] don’t take Bronny James,” Bob Myers, the former GM of the Golden State Warriors, said on ESPN’s draft broadcast. “If you take him, he’s going to Australia.”
Now, he’s heading to Los Angeles.
Adding further intrigue to the move: LeBron James can become a free agent next week, which means he could choose to leave the Lakers and sign elsewhere.
The draft move doesn’t guarantee that father and son will actually play in a game together, nor does it even guarantee that Bronny James will be on the Lakers’ roster next season. But it certainly raises the possibility that it could happen in what would be an NBA first – a father-son on-court duo in the league simultaneously as players. There have been about 100 instances in NBA history of players joining the league after their fathers played, but those always came at least five years after the father’s career ended.
“I don’t want to hear the charges, people talking about nepotism,” Adrian Wojnarowski said on ESPN. “The NBA is full of nepotism. The ownership level, front offices, coaching. I don’t want to hear about it all of a sudden because Bronny James’s father plays for the Lakers. It is rampant in this league.”
But LeBron James’s incredible longevity – he’ll match Vince Carter for the longest career as an NBA player ever this coming season, which will be his 22nd in the league – makes the father-son duo possible.
“With the 55th pick in the 2024 NBA draft, the Los Angeles Lakers select Bronny James from the University of Southern California,” NBA deputy commissioner Mark Tatum said in announcing the pick, making the moment official for the 19-year-old, who was born just before the start of his father’s second NBA season.
The best LeBron stat of all time might be that this kid just got drafted to the NBA while LeBron is still averaging just as many points, assists, and rebounds per game as he did when this photo was taken 17 years ago 🤯 pic.twitter.com/sCOdINSiDE
— Joe Pompliano (@JoePompliano) June 27, 2024
Bronny James is a guard, one who was listed at 6ft 4in on USC’s roster but measured 6ft 1in at the draft combine. That would make him one of the shortest players in the NBA, but his athleticism and defensive ability helped give him this opportunity.
He played one year of college basketball at USC and averaged 4.8 points, 2.8 rebounds and 2.1 assists per game last season. He played in 25 games, missing the start of the season after needing a procedure last year to fix what was diagnosed as a congenital heart defect, which was found after he went into cardiac arrest during a summer workout.
A panel of doctors cleared Bronny James for NBA play last month.
Day two of the draft saw 24 other players get taken before Bronny James, though none of them – not even close, really – got the attention that the No 55 selection received, for obvious reasons.
The 55th pick rarely turns out to be a player who captures a slew of attention. The best 55th pick in NBA history is Miami Heat guard Patty Mills, selected in 2009. He has scored 7,893 points in his 15-season career.
Some other notable No 55 picks include Marc Iavaroni, Mark Blount, Kenny Gattison and E’Twaun Moore. There’s never been a No 55 pick that was an NBA All-Star, an All-NBA player, an All-Rookie team player or an All-Defensive team pick.
Last season’s No 55 pick, Isaiah Wong, scored exactly two points for Indiana as a rookie. Add up every No 55 pick ever, and their NBA career scoring total is 28,364 points – more than 12,000 points fewer than LeBron James has scored in his career.
Still, there are plenty of starter-caliber players discovered in the second-round, and even future Hall of Famers. Three-time MVP Nikola Jokić was selected with the No 41 pick by the Denver Nuggets in 2014. Two-time All-NBA center Marc Gasol was taken at No 48 by the Memphis Grizzlies in 2007. Many Ginóbili, one of the most skilled guards in league history, was the 57th overall pick in the 1999 draft.