LeBron and Bronny James make history in Lakers’ season-opening win
Part plan, part pipe dream, LeBron and Bronny James became the first father and son to share an NBA court together, a milestone celebrating the elder James’ longevity and the younger James’ resilience.
The two Lakers walked to the scorer’s table together with four minutes left in the second quarter of Tuesday night’s season opener against Minnesota at Crypto.com Arena, making history when they checked in. They played less than three minutes together, with Bronny missing both of his first two shots in the NBA. It hardly mattered.
“I talked about it years and years ago, and for this moment to come, it’s pretty cool,” LeBron said after the Lakers’ 110-103 win. “I don’t know that it’s actually going to hit the both of us for a little minute where we really get to sit back and be like, ‘Oh, sheesh, that was pretty, that’s pretty crazy.’”
Ken Griffey Sr. and Ken Griffey Jr., the first father and son to play on the same team in Major League Baseball, attended the game. Hockey legend Gordie Howe and MLB Hall of Famer Tim Raines also played with their children as teammates on the highest professional levels.
This new chapter in history was just part of the story as the Lakers began JJ Redick’s tenure as coach with forceful intention, Anthony Davis leading them to their first win on opening night since 2016. Davis had 36 points, 16 rebounds, four assists and three blocked shots, attacking Minnesota center Rudy Gobert with a combination of speed, skill and force.
The Lakers used a second-quarter run to build a 19-point lead before each of their starters had a hand in holding Minnesota off in the fourth.
Austin Reaves grabbed nine rebounds, Rui Hachimura had 18 points and D’Angelo Russell helped settle the Lakers during a stretch in the fourth quarter when he scored on a floater and threw a pair of lobs for three consecutive scores.
Fittingly, LeBron’s first three-pointer of the game iced the win — ending a night when the team made only five of 30 shots from deep. He opened his 22nd season with 16 points.
LeBron set the historic moment in motion in 2018 when he set the goal of playing with his oldest son as a finish-line moment. Two years later, he said playing with Bronny on the same team would be a “dream.”
This year at the NBA draft, the possibility became real when the Lakers used the 55th pick to select Bronny despite an underwhelming first season at USC, where he averaged 4.8 points per game.
James didn’t debut for the Trojans until Dec. 10 because of a near-death ordeal during a summer workout on USC’s campus. James went into cardiac arrest and lost consciousness on July 25, 2023. USC athletic trainers used lifesaving measures, including a defibrillator. He later underwent surgery to correct a congenital heart defect.
“When he’s able to grace an NBA floor, if that’s tonight or whenever the case may be, it’ll be another one of those moments just to know the adversity that he went through,” LeBron said Tuesday morning. “I’ve had a couple of family members that have had heart surgeries. Some of them older, some of them younger. And to know how long it kind of takes to get back to yourself, to see him be able to play in a college Division I game the same year that he had heart surgery was, like, a ‘wow’ moment.
“And I knew that at that moment that there really was going to be nothing to stop him from getting to this — to anything that he wants to do. And he wanted to continue to play basketball.”
Before the game, Nike released a commercial in which LeBron filled Bronny’s car with Fruity Pebbles cereal in a bit of rookie hazing.
“Thank God that wasn’t my car,” Bronny said.
“He has multiple cars now. He opened that one and then got in another one,” LeBron quipped after the game.
The two had enjoyed their first moment sharing the court in the preseason, playing four minutes together during one of the games, a moment that left LeBron amazed.
“We stood next to each other and I kinda looked at him, and it was just like, ‘Is this “The Matrix” or something?’” he said. “It just didn’t feel real.”
After Tuesday’s opener, Bronny, who struggled for most of the preseason, downplayed his debut.
“I just got out there and it felt like a normal game with my teammate, to be honest,” he said.
The Lakers open the season with a mandate for change under new coach JJ Redick, who will try to implement his philosophies with LeBron James and Anthony Davis.
But as the moment approached, especially considering the adversity he dealt with to get to it, Bronny’s NBA debut was more than just another game.
“Yeah,” he said before the game, “it’s gonna be insane.”
And to make it even better, the Lakers got the win.
“We still had a job to do when we checked in. We wasn’t trying to make it a circus. We wasn’t trying to make it about us,” LeBron said. “We wanted to make it about the team, for us to go out there and continue to play the game, the brand of basketball that the coaching staff and our teammates wanted us to play. We kept that. We kept the main thing while we was on the floor. And that was good for all of us.”
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