Bronny James has been hyped up since videos of him hooping in high school emerged and now as a USC recruit, he’s facing even more pressure to make it into the NBA.
LeBron James has also expressed his desire to play on the same NBA team as his son but Inside the NBA analyst Kenny Smith is calling on the NBA world to quit the hype – and not because he thinks Bronny isn’t talented enough.
“Stop,” Smith said on BigBoyTV. “His son is at USC and he has to go through a process to possibly get into the NBA that is very hard to get to. People forget, 75 years of basketball, Big, there’s only been 5,100 players that touch a floor. Ten-day contracts, ten seconds, one second, only 5,100 people in 75 years. To be waiting on your son to be one of those 5,100, that doesn’t even make sense either. He’s not waiting on his son. He’s wishing his son would make it.”
There have been mixed reviews on Bronny, who will be eligible for the 2024 draft.
ESPN’s Jonathan Givony ranked Bronny in the top ten of his mock draft for next year four months ago.
Givony called Bronny “the best perimeter defender in his high school class” and detailed how “he’d found another gear with his explosiveness and become an absolute terror off the ball defensively.”
He played in the McDonalds All-American Game game and dunk contest but afterwards, one NBA scout told the The Athletic they ranked mini James 17th out of 24 players, so they clearly weren’t buying into the hype.
NBA players like Kevin Durant have given the young star praise but none of this means he will actually make it to the NBA, as Smith points out.
In saying that, Bronny has no ordinary dad in LeBron and if Bron’s dream is to play with his son, he will do everything he possibly can to make that happen.
Plus, imagine being the team that drafts Bronny and then having LeBron James on your team because of that. Talk about bolstering your franchises’ stock!