Bronny James enters second Las Vegas Summer League free of the hype — and in his element

New York Times

10-07-2025

LAS VEGAS — This wasn't the biggest part of the job Zach Guthrie had been hired for, but it was the most inevitable, the elephant in the room that needed to be dealt with.
The South Bay Lakers were about to play the G League season opener in front of a sellout crowd with the most famous 55th selection of all time in the middle of it all. Bronny James' path to the court might have seemed like it was destined, a favor to the league's all-time leading scorer. But for the Los Angeles Lakers and for the rookie in the locker room, this was just supposed to all be one step in the developmental process, another deposit into the team's investment into a second-round pick it believed in.
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But Guthrie, as South Bay's head coach, had to acknowledge that this wasn't just any regular game, that the hype and the attention and the spotlight and the circus and the other stuff had to be addressed.
So Guthrie hatched a plan. He had a staffer smuggle a balloon into the locker room beforehand. He hid a needle up his sleeve. And after he laid it all out, the attention, the 'Bronny' chants, the unavoidable distractions, Guthrie popped the balloon. (He even tested the needle beforehand to avoid a credibility-shattering mishap.)
'I let that sit there and I just popped the balloon,' Guthrie remembered last season. 'And I was like, 'We can let that s— go right now. This is just basketball, right? … Not to go full Hoosiers on you, but it's still 10 feet (high), it's still 94 feet (long).'
The message to the players had been delivered — the only one who didn't need to hear it?
Bronny James.
It's always felt bigger when James took the court, the stakes feeling so high like he needed to justify his place in the public's attention with immediate results, when it was always so clear that this was going to require some patience. But the calluses from dealing with a lifetime of being LeBron James' eldest son have made him proficient, if not totally comfortable, with all of it.
Thursday night in Las Vegas, one year after his face was on the banners despite being picked near the end of the second round, Bronny James opens his second NBA Summer League as not even the 'star' in his first game. The eyes, for a change, will be more focused on someone else — No. 1 pick Cooper Flagg.
Don't expect the eyes to stay shifted. They always have swung back.
James has lived in this as long as he can remember. It's the kind of attention that comes from being the main event his whole basketball-playing life, getting tested by players who want to prove themselves against his bloodline, getting praised by fans who feel like they've known him since birth, dodging critics eager to transfer feelings about LeBron James onto him as he tried to carve an NBA career out for himself.
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Last week before Bronny James began his second summer as a professional, he admitted that some of his successes as a rookie — a 17-point game against the Milwaukee Bucks in March, nearly 22 points per game in the final 11 G League games he appeared — have given him confidence that he can impact games offensively. But it hasn't pushed him from the path he wants to walk.
'It's definitely made me think about being more aggressive on that end of the floor. But I can't lose that defensive drive that will get me on the floor,' he said. ''Cause there's gonna be guys that can go out and score 15, 20 a game. … I'm most likely not gonna be that guy right now, but to get myself on the floor, I have to be a defensive menace. And that's my main focus – getting in condition this year. It's been shown that I know how to score the ball a little bit. So understand, stand true to that, but also focus in on the defensive end.'
Video of James' quote went viral, the response almost universally positive, fans seeing the attitude Lakers coaches loved so much since they drafted him last year.
'Credit to him,' Guthrie said. 'With all the things swirling around him and all the things that have been, like, outside noise or like a mixing of rat poison, all this stuff, I think he's been able to block it out and focus on himself and his development.'
The issue is, and will be for awhile anyway, is that it's simply too hard for other people to block all of that out and view James in isolation. While the Lakers picked him last year to make LeBron James happy, they also picked Bronny James because of the safe-ish bet on an athletic guard with a plus wingspan, a high character and a willingness to work.
Whether with Guthrie in the G League or with development coach Ty Abbott and the main roster, James has earned big fans by his work behind the scenes.
The trajectory a year ago, from a manufactured opening night moment to James starting off the Lakers' summer with a steal and a spiked one-hand dunk in transition, has validated some of that gamble.
Bronny's first bucket of Summer League 🔥 https://t.co/JpoNKBNGyb pic.twitter.com/gvlINktLvM
— NBA (@NBA) July 6, 2024
'Bronny's work with South Bay Lakers was – you can look at the numbers and see his trajectory and growth and maturity,' Lakers president of basketball operations and general manager Rob Pelinka said after South Bay's season ended.
'Super impressed with the way our coaching staff wrapped around him, led by (Lakers assistant) Coach Ty and Bronny having a great relationship. Seeing how they worked, seeing how they broke down film. He's a guy that shows up every day trying to get better. We appreciate that quality about him, and it played out.'
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In his first game of the summer Sunday, James played 10 minutes and scored 10 points, looking like the most comfortable and in-command player on the court in short shifts as the team eases him to more action in Vegas. He faded in light minutes during his second game on Tuesday, but inside the Lakers' building, there's real optimism about Bronny James' future.
It'll still be plenty of spectacle Thursday night — Day 1 passes with reserved seats are selling for nearly $500 or more on the secondary market.
But this is different. A year ago, Bronny James was the story in Las Vegas, snap judgments being made with every promising player and with every brutal turnover. There's more evidence now and less curiosity.
There's also going to be less pressure.
'Yeah, it's definitely some more excitement than nervousness for sure,' he said. 'I'm just ready to go out there and play and be better than I was the last time I was playing.'
It'll never be just basketball, not for Bronny James. No balloon pop will ease that tension.
But as he's gotten more comfortable, as he's gotten more confident and as people have gotten more used to seeing him on the court, James is starting to feel more like himself.
And maybe, people will get more comfortable seeing that.
(Illustration: Kelsea Petersen / The Athletic; Luke Hales / Getty, Garrett Ellwood / Getty, Noah Graham / Getty)