Bronny James falters following yet another setback: I think I may be experiencing mild depression.
Bronny fails to score, and he is beginning to accept that he will be spending more time away from the Lakers and his father in the near future.
with the fact that his immediate future is getting farther away from the Lakers and closer to the South Bay Lakers, the team linked to the Los Angeles Angels, with each passing day. LeBron’s 19-year-old son seemed to be handling the pressure pretty well so far, but his morale is cracking.
It’s not easy being the son of one of the best players in NBA history, especially if your performance is light years away not only from your progenitor, something normal with his stratospheric level, and is far inferior (to be generous) to that of the youngsters competing with him to make a place in the NBA.
In a sport like basketball where statistics are almost the Bible, where every action, every contribution and every mistake is looked at with a magnifying glass, Bronny is being portrayed. In fact, after playing three games with the Lakers in the Summer League, including two in the California Classic, he has some numbers that make you cringe to see them: 6 of 26 shots from the field in total (23.1%) and 0 of 12 from the 3-point line.
There is no excuse for such an offensive blunder, unbecoming of any player who aspires to make it in the NBA. And Bronny, always positive, had no choice but to admit that he is going through a slump: “I feel like I’m in a little bit of a slump right now,” Bronny admitted, visibly frustrated. And he left the door open to what seems inevitable, that he will end up in the Lakers’ affiliate: “I’m anxious to play basketball, no matter what level I’m at,” he acknowledged.
Six baskets in three games… and only one outside the zone
In the three Summer League games he has played with the Lakers Bronny has scored six baskets, but only one of them from outside the zone, according to ESPN Stats & Information. A statistic that confirms just how much he has been denied in front of the opposing hoop.
Still, Dane Johnson, the Lakers’ summer league coach, downplayed those offensive problems for LeBron’s son: “He’s going to have a long career,” he said. “This is just the beginning. We just have to keep instilling confidence in them, keep it in their heads. So we still have a long way to go.”
Johnson, coach of the South Bay Lakers, the Los Angeles Lakers’ G League affiliate, was asked about the increasingly realistic possibility of Bronny playing a lot of games for them next season, seeing as he doesn’t measure up for the Lakers’ first team, but he wouldn’t budge: “I don’t know yet, so I can’t say anything about it, but I think all these players will be in the G League at some point.”
His agent, against a dual contract
The fact that Bronny is already bluntly accepting the possibility of having to play in the Lakers’ affiliate clashes with the message delivered by his agent, Rich Paul of Klutch Sports, the same as his father’s, before the draft.
“I told teams that if they plan on signing Bronny, here’s what they need to know: if they don’t offer him a real deal, there’s nothing to talk about,” Paul told ESPN then . “It’s hard to get real development on a two-way deal.”
New Lakers coach JJ Redick tried to encourage Bronny after watching one of his games at the Las Vegas Summer League, praising mostly his defensive play, the only positive so far: “He’s been fantastic so far,” he told ESPN. “We want him to press the ball. I told him yesterday, ‘If you get outrebounded, if you commit 10 fouls, it’s my fault, but I want you to pressure the ball.'”
