Rookie hazing, cupcakes and extra shots: LeBron and Bronny’s path to NBA history

An hour and 55 minutes before tipoff on Tuesday, Los Angeles Lakers coach JJ Redick made no promises that LeBron and Bronny James would make history during the regular season opener later that night.

Especially with his first game coaching the Lakers coming against one of the Western Conference’s best in the Minnesota Timberwolves.

“We would all like to win,” Redick said during his pregame remarks. “I’d like to go 82-0.” Redick said he consulted with the father and son in multiple conversations leading up to the Minnesota game and the group came to a consensus: “We want it to make sense, and we want it to happen naturally and in the flow of the game.”

Of course, the environment was anything but natural, with Ken Griffey Jr. and Ken Griffey Sr. sitting courtside, baseball’s first father-son duo there to witness the same happen in basketball by the James family.

As much as the Griffeys’ presence was an indicator that Tuesday would be the night, the real tell came when LeBron subbed out with 7:34 to go in the second quarter and marched down the baseline to the Lakers’ bench.

Sitting in the second-to-last seat – next to LeBron’s customary end spot, left vacant for the Lakers’ star – was Bronny.

All preseason long, Bronny sat toward the middle of the bench, the rookie jammed in with other young teammates within earshot of the coaches’ chatter. This positioning, however, set up Bronny and LeBron’s entrance a few minutes later. With exactly four minutes remaining in the second quarter – after a 29-12 run by the Lakers gave Redick’s group a double-digit lead – the coach made the call.

LeBron and Bronny stood up together and advanced to the scorer’s table, with Bronny leading and Dad trailing behind. With each step, more and more fans realized history was about to be made – and a buzz began to vibrate across the arena.

By the time they were peeling off their warmups to officially enter the game together, the crowd met the moment with a hearty ovation.

Their first steps onto the court ended up being more momentous than their first shift. In just over two minutes together, L.A. was outscored 7-2. Bronny missed an open 3 on the wing off a pass from LeBron that had the arena ready to erupt had it gone down. LeBron missed a shot off a Bronny feed, too. The pairing, just like Bronny’s young career, is a work in progress.

That work officially began three weeks ago, when the then-19-year-old joined his dad, Anthony Davis and the rest of the Lakers at his first training camp. Since then, the anticipation of the father-son regular season debut only heightened, with the crescendo finally peaking Tuesday night. Here are seven key moments, between LeBron and Bronny, from training camp through the preseason, that paved the way to history.

---

Oct. 2: El Segundo, California — a one-play showcase for the Lakers’ vision for LeBron and Bronny

On the second day of practice, during a full-court scrimmage, rookie guard Quincy Olivari had the ball in the corner, covered by Jaxson Hayes. Olivari, who had come into training camp on an Exhibit 10 deal and earned a two-way contract by the end of it, oozes confidence. But on this play, rather than testing his shot against the 7-foot-1 center, he swung it out to Bronny James, who was flashing some bravado of his own.

Bronny had maneuvered from the top of the key to the left wing, showing his hands to Olivari to signal he wanted the ball as a 6-foot-9, 250-pound defender — who happens to be his father, LeBron James — trailed on his hip.

Olivari zipped it to Bronny, who immediately put the ball on the floor and dribbled backward half a step beyond the 3-point line. His left-hand dribble gave his dad time to catch up and square up in his defensive stance, but it also gave James space.

He dribbled once more and turned his head toward rookie forward Dalton Knecht, who had moved to top of the key. However, once the ball bounced off the hardwood, Bronny went right into his shooting motion and launched. The ball was already out of his hands before LeBron could even raise an arm to contest. It splashed through the hoop for three points.

“Everybody was talking smack in Bronny’s favor,” Anthony Davis said. “Then Bron came down and just bullied somebody. Just took it out on [him] and got a layup.”

Indeed, on the next possession, LeBron used five dribbles to go coast-to-coast, trucking wing Maxwell Lewis as he burst from the 3-point arc toward the paint, to finish at the hoop.

This was the Los Angeles Lakers‘ vision for selecting Bronny with the No. 55 pick.

Coming off a taxing — albeit successful — summer at the Olympics, LeBron, 39, would be well within his rights to coast during camp ahead of his 22nd season.

But if having Bronny around is going to invigorate the 22-year veteran, won’t that energize the entire organization? “I think it just feels right that our team is in a position to honor LeBron and honor how he wants the last chapter to go,” Rob Pelinka, Lakers general manager and vice president of basketball operations, told ESPN this summer. “And we feel really good about it. That’s who the Lakers are, who the Lakers have always been and who we’ll be. We will honor the greats and we’re proud of that.”

Oct. 4: Palm Desert, California — exclusive kicks and two divergent rookie performances

As Bronny waited his turn to take the court at Acrisure Arena to go through his pregame routine with the Lakers’ lead player development coach, Ty Abbott, he sat on the sideline and laced up his sneakers.

While Bronny’s quiet demeanor rarely demands attention, in this moment, his kicks did. Red and suede and exclusive — a player-edition (commonly referred to as “PE” in the sneaker community) of the Nike LeBron NXXT Gen AMPD — his No. 9 was stitched on in white thread, just next to the Nike swoosh.

Later that night, Lakers coach JJ Redick started the second quarter with Bronny on the court and played him 16 minutes total. It was his first NBA action.

Bronny finished with two points on 1-for-6 shooting, but led the team with three blocked shots, including a patented James-family chase-down on the Minnesota Timberwolves’ Nickeil Alexander-Walker.

As Bronny exited the court to head to the locker room, he found Wolves rookie Rob Dillingham for a quick hello. Like Bronny, Dillingham was notably smaller than most players on the court, listed at 6-1, 195 pounds. Like Bronny, Dillingham came off the bench the vast majority of the games he played in his freshman season in college before declaring for the draft. Like Bronny, Dillingham is represented by Klutch Sports and they spent countless hours preparing for the season together this summer in L.A.

Unlike Bronny, Dillingham scored 21 points on 9-for-20 shooting with four assists — more than anyone on the Lakers, with LeBron and Davis sitting out the exhibition opener.

Oct. 6: Palm Desert, California — birthday cupcakes and a soft launch to history

In the team’s meeting room, a tray full of cupcakes with yellow frosting and purple sprinkles sat next to a white, two-layer cake with purple and gold ribbons and fondant palm trees awaited Bronny. It was his 20th birthday.

Just 15 months earlier, during a summer workout at USC ahead of his freshman season, Bronny had gone into cardiac arrest. Doctors discovered a congenital heart defect and performed surgery to correct it, leaving a six-inch scar down the center of his chest. In an October cover story, he told Men’s Health magazine he now takes regular heart medication.

In Palm Springs, against the Suns, Bronny started the second quarter again — only this time, his dad was there with him.

They stood shoulder to shoulder in the backcourt, the Spectrum Sportsnet camera capturing James’ No. 23 next to James Jr.’s No. 9.

They played four minutes together and the happenstance was more memorable than the hoops. During one 44-second stretch, the duo turned the ball over three times — two for Bronny, one for LeBron.

This was a soft launch for history — and a celebration.

“For a father, it means everything,” James said afterward. “For someone who didn’t have that growing up, to be able to have that influence on your kids and have influence on your son … and ultimately to be able to work with your son, I think that’s one of the greatest things that a father can ever hope for or wish for.”

Oct. 12, El Segundo, California — an early mentor for Bronny

What started as a simple request from LeBron to Max Christie, to join him and Bronny after practice for extra shots, is now something Christie could set his watch to.

“It’s kind of turned into a routine thing now, which I find pretty cool,” Christie told ESPN of the family spot shooting exercise.

“It’s usually just a bunch of movement shots,” Christie continued. “Just getting extra reps. It’s really more so confidence for us as players and kind of seeing the ball go through the hoop after practice and building muscle memory.”

Lakers assistant coach Scott Brooks joins the group to help pass and rebound.

“I never thought in my being in the NBA for 38 years, I would see a father and a son be on the court together on the same team, or even in the NBA period,” Brooks told ESPN. Christie, 21, is entering his third season after the Lakers picked him 35th in the second round in 2022.

What LeBron pours into Christie, Christie is now pouring into Bronny.

“I don’t know if I’m a ‘vet’ yet, but I kind of have some experience in this,” Christie said of Bronny, whose locker is next to his. “I definitely have been trying to look out for him a little bit. I know, kind of, the things he’s under. The optics. The visual stress of it, whatever you want to call it. So I want to be there for him … and not, obviously, intrude on his space but when I feel like he can use some instruction or it seems like he’s down or whatever, I kind of want to be there for him.”

Not that Brooks says he thinks Bronny necessarily needs much extra help.

“Most young players, and I’ve coached a lot of them, you have to go down a checklist of what they need to do in order to be able to be an NBA player,” Brooks said. “He’s obviously been raised the right way. The professionalism, the [being] on time, coachable, working every day, understanding there’s going to be ups and downs. He gets all of that. Now he just has to experience it all for himself. Not one time have I ever had to pull Bronny over to the side and say, ‘Hey, it’s not cool what you just did.'”

If anything, Brooks is there to make sure the old man doesn’t pull any shenanigans to win any of the shooting competitions.

“I’m keeping track,” Brooks said. “LeBron is 0-7. He hasn’t won one of them. It’s Bronny and Max winning everything and I’m making sure that the group is well aware of it.”

Oct. 15, Las Vegas — a little rookie hazing … from Dad?

If the black, slide sandals with white skeleton bones embossed on them didn’t suggest Bronny was a rookie, the shiny, holographic backpack that looked as if it were made from the same material as Marty McFly’s hat in “Back to the Future II” certainly did.

The gaudy backpack is the first outward sign of any rookie hazing.

As he made his way off the T-Mobile Arena court after shootaround, Bronny walked by LeBron, who was having saran wrap looped around his back to hold an ice bag in place.

“You got to do media?” LeBron said, trolling his son.

“You know I was going to after yesterday,” Bronny quipped back.

The day before, LeBron was asked how Bronny was dealing with all of the outside attention as the preseason played out.

“You got to ask him,” LeBron said. “That’s a grown man. Ask him how he’s handling it. And then we go from there. But he’s a grown man. He’s a professional. He can handle all this pressure himself.”

Bronny explained one way he avoids a lot of the noise. “I don’t have Twitter,” he said. “I don’t like it. I don’t need it.”

He added that he had identified what his game was missing — and it wasn’t lack of size or the inability to grasp NBA schemes at such a young age.

“Just need to grow my confidence and be more comfortable when I’m out there playing,” he said. “Because, I feel good. The numbers could be better, but I just got to get my confidence up.”

Later that night, with the Golden State Warriors pulling away from the Lakers in the second half, the Vegas crowd started a “Bronny! Bronny!” chant in the third quarter.

Bronny, stoic, stared out at the action on the court. LeBron, seated at the end of the bench, sat expressionless too. Davis, however, sitting next to LeBron, cracked a wry smile.

The chant became louder in the fourth quarter. And when Redick subbed Bronny in with 9:07 left in the fourth and L.A. down 88-73, the crowd erupted like a student section cheering for a walk-on. On the Lakers’ next possession, with the crowd still buzzing, Bronny received the ball on the right wing with former defensive player of the tear, Draymond Green, guarding him.

He jab stepped, then fired, clanking a miss off the rim.

On the next possession, D’Angelo Russell had an open look at a transition 3 but spotted Bronny in the same spot where Bronny missed the 3 against Green. Russell passed it to him for a do-over. He missed again.

When asked about the sequence later, Russell downplayed the Bronny angle. “If anybody was there, I would have tried to [find them],” he said. “We call it good to great. We try to get a greater shot than just a good shot. So, he just happened to be there. I look forward to him making it in the future, for sure.”

Bronny finished the game 1-for-5 shooting (0-for-3 from 3), to drop his total to 2-for-16 for the preseason.

Oct. 17, Phoenix — ‘Training his a–‘

Olympic gold medalists Kevin Durant, Devin Booker, Davis and LeBron were all in the building when, about an hour and a half before tipoff, three videographers rushed over to Bronny and crouched in front of him to shoot him tying his sneakers on the bench before taking the court for his pregame shooting routine.

“This is crazy,” a Lakers photographer muttered under her breath as she took a photo.

The fervor had been building at the Footprint Center all day. When the Lakers were conducting the closed portion of their shootaround earlier that morning — meaning all entrances from the concourses to the seats were covered — somebody pulled back one of the curtains in the upper bowl and blurted one word before scurrying away:

“Bronny!”

LeBron sat out the game (“DNP — old,” Redick joked) but had a front row seat when, in the third quarter, Bronny drove and Bradley Beal met him in the air, as Bronny attempted a scoop shot around him. Despite the contact, no foul was called and Bronny quickly corralled his own miss and went right back up with the ball to score.

The rest of the game was a mixed bag for Bronny, who earned his first flagrant foul after accidentally undercutting Suns forward Jalen Bridges on a fast break, but Knecht had what Redick described as a “supernatural” performance to steal the spotlight by scoring 25 of his 35 points in the fourth quarter and overtime to lead L.A. to a win.

Knecht’s efforts were necessary, in part, because of Bronny’s defense on Suns’ second-year guard Collin Gillespie. Similarly sized at 6-1, 195 pounds, Gillespie went right at Bronny when the Lakers rookie tried to pick him up full court late in the fourth, beating him off the dribble and slicing into the lane to finish with a reverse layup to put Phoenix up by six with 1:09 to go. In the extra session, Gillespie connected on a corner 3 against an ineffective closeout by Bronny and shot him a gratuitous smile to rub it in.

After the game, LeBron was walking toward the loading dock to board the bus when he crossed paths with his former teammate, James Jones, who now leads the Suns’ front office.

Walking alongside Jones was his 17-year-old son, named after him: James Dylan Jones. Like Bronny, he goes by a nickname, JD. Unlike Bronny, he can stroll through the Suns’ arena without stirring up fans (and cameras).

“What’s up, nephew?!” LeBron said, placing one hand on each of JD’s shoulders. “They don’t stop growing.”

Jones, who LeBron once called “my favorite player of all time,” checked in with the Lakers star.

“What have you been up to?” Jones asked.

“Teaching this little [man] here,” LeBron said, nodding his head back toward the visitors locker room where Bronny was getting dressed. “Training his ass.”

Oct. 18, San Francisco — a dunk for his troubles

The visitors locker room at Chase Center felt decidedly more like a watch party for the New York Yankees’ and Cleveland Guardians’ American League Championship Series game than a sanctuary to prepare for an NBA game as the Lakers readied for their preseason finale.

With all five starters out for rest, banter filled the room.

One minute, Davis was asking the series score of the National League Championship Series.

“If the Dodgers win the World Series,” he said, “that means we’re winning the championship too.” (Referring to how the Lakers and Dodgers both last won the title within weeks of each other in October 2020.)

The next minute, LeBron was preaching the importance of being able to do more than score on the basketball court — at Christian Wood’s expense.

“I’m a bucket,” Wood argued.

LeBron immediately countered, bringing up the Lakers’ game against the Dallas Mavericks’ last November when Wood went 0-for-1 against his former team in what was supposed to be a revenge game after the franchise let Wood walk in free agency.

“Can’t have no donut and be a bucket,” LeBron chirped.

“C’mon, I was on one leg!” Wood pleaded. “I’m a bucket. It’s in my blood.”

Eventually, the conversation turned to the game.

As the different lineup permutations were being tossed around, Bronny’s name was mentioned.

Bronny, wearing headphones and looking down at his phone in one hand while twisting out tendrils of his hair with the other, was oblivious.

“He’s locked in,” Olivari said, before correctly predicting an in-game poster out of Bronny.

In the third quarter, Cam Reddish poked the ball away from Golden State guard De’Anthony Melton. Olivari corralled it and pushed ahead, igniting a break for L.A.

Bronny streaked down the right wing, past the backpedaling Melton and Buddy Hield, and threw his right hand in the air, signaling for a lob.

Olivari obliged, hoisting the ball up and Bronny finished with an alley-oop flush, the first dunk of any kind of his career.

He finished the game with 17 points on 7-for-17 shooting, adding 4 rebounds and 3 steals in 35 minutes, the most points by a 55th pick in a rookie preseason since Mike Taylor scored 21 for the L.A. Clippers in 2008.

Said Bronny: “It was just a great feeling to go out there and not think as much as I do — and just play.”