Los Angeles Lakers<\/a> after his 41-year-old father’s\u00a0departure for the Philadelphia 76ers. The younger James enters his third NBA season this week, still working to win a rotation role with\u00a0the team that drafted him in 2024\u00a0in the family’s adopted hometown.<\/p>\nBronny and LeBron spent the past two seasons as\u00a0the NBA’s first father-son teammates, an achievement LeBron said was comparable to any of his championship rings. But the top scorer in league history decided his hunger for another title was greater than his desire to stay by Bronny’s side.<\/p>\n
In his first extensive public comments on this unusual situation Monday, Bronny confirmed he isn’t the least bit angry or disappointed by his dad’s departure.<\/p>\n
He’s already well aware that when your father is LeBron James, many things are bigger than you.<\/p>\n
\u201cHappy for him, and excited for where their season goes,\u201d Bronny said. \u201cI\u2019m excited to see him on Christmas, excited to play against him on Christmas. It\u2019s going to be good.\u201d<\/p>\n
The 76ers visit the Lakers on Dec. 25.<\/p>\n
While LeBron\u2019s enthusiasm for being an engaged father to his three children is well-documented, Bronny said he didn’t have extensive discussions with his father about the move.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re men of very little words when it comes to talking about business and what we\u2019re going to do and how we feel about each other,\u201d Bronny said with a smile. \u201cIt wasn\u2019t really much, to be honest with you. He\u2019s got his own path and I\u2019ve got my own, so he knows that I want to make a name for myself and want to continue my career and keep growing as a player, and he knows I\u2019ll want to focus on that, so he decided to (move).\u201d<\/p>\n
And while LeBron meets his new teammates and settles into Philadelphia this week, his son is getting back to work with the Lakers. LeBron won’t be a constant presence in the locker room and on the road to dispense guidance and leadership to his son \u2014 and he won’t be around for Bronny’s 22nd birthday next week, either.<\/p>\n
That’s all fine for Bronny, who wasn’t fazed while he went through\u00a0his first Lakers media day\u00a0without his father’s massive presence and booming voice nearby.<\/p>\n
\u201cFeels like he\u2019s not here,\u201d Bronny said at the Lakers’ training complex. \u201cI don\u2019t really have an opinion on that. That\u2019s my dad. I\u2019ve spent almost 22 years with him, so just another experience that I\u2019m going to be a part of, and I\u2019m excited how it\u2019s going to feel during the season. So I\u2019m looking forward to it.\u201d<\/p>\n
LeBron said this week that he left the Lakers to chase his fifth championship ring. The unspoken part of that declaration is James\u2019 apparent belief he\u2019s closer to a title in Philadelphia than in Los Angeles, where his Lakers won just one playoff round in the past three seasons.<\/p>\n
But Bronny is optimistic about the Lakers’ chances to build an exciting \u2014 and pointedly younger \u2014 core around NBA scoring champion Luka Doncic and prolific guard Austin Reaves. New center Walker Kessler should be a sharp upgrade under the opponents’ basket and on lob finishes, and he’s just one of nine new players hoping to win roles with Los Angeles.<\/p>\n
\u201cEveryone is young, so there\u2019s a lot of energy flowing around, and I think we feed off each other,\u201d Bronny said. \u201cI don\u2019t know yet, because we haven\u2019t played a game, but because we\u2019re young and we\u2019re finding a way to get close to each other, I think we can feed off each other\u2019s energy. There\u2019s going to be a lot of guys that can go out and give full effort, turn up the game, and we can probably play fast because of how young we are. \u2026 We have a good chance of making it far.\u201d<\/p>\n
LeBron ended this family partnership right when Bronny appeared to be on the verge of breaking through to a regular role. Bronny played regularly down the stretch last season and into the playoffs while Doncic and Reaves were sidelined by injury, teaming up with his father for significant minutes in the Lakers’ first-round upset of the Houston Rockets.<\/p>\n
Bronny wants to continue his growth as a secondary ballhandler and a point-of-attack defender, two roles in which he excelled for long stretches last spring. His father won’t be around for tips and critiques, but Bronny is ready to figure out some things on his own \u2014 and with ample help from his teammates and coaches, of course.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think I did play my role pretty well in the Houston series, and that\u2019s something I can grow off of,\u201d Bronny said. \u201cShowing up every day and playing my game and being relentless on both sides of the floor and making sure I\u2019m getting my teammates involved and disrupting on the defensive end of the floor.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"EL SEGUNDO, Calif. \u2014 Bronny James seems to realize that the wildest part of LeBron James’ decision to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":914101,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[434],"tags":[49,48,459,82],"class_list":["post-914100","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-nba","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/914100","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=914100"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/914100\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/914101"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=914100"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=914100"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=914100"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}