Bronny James played his first game against one of his father’s former teams on Thursday night when the Los Angeles Lakers took on the Cleveland Cavaliers in the NBA Summer League. How did he do?
James entered Thursday night’s game coming off of the best game of his young professional career. He dropped a career-high 12 points against the Hawks on 5-for-11 shooting from the field. The performance included his first two made 3-pointers on five total attempts.
Before the matchup with the Cavaliers, James had a total of 29 points on 12-of-42 shooting (2-of-15 on 3-point attempts) as well as 16 rebounds, six steals, and three blocks.
The Lakers snapped a four-game losing streak to start Summer League play with the win over the Atlanta Hawks on Wednesday night.
Here’s how James fared in his sixth game of Summer League action. Stats will be updated occasionally throughout the game.
LAS VEGAS — Bronny James was a spectator on Saturday after the Los Angeles Lakersdetermined that they have seen all they need out of the NBA’s most talked-about rookie.
He finished summer league on an upward trajectory after a dismal start, scoring 25 points on 10-of-21 shooting over his final two games. That included making 3 of 8 baskets from 3-point range after going 0 for 15 in his first four games.
“He had two pretty good games last two,” Lakers summer league coach Dane Johnson said. “I think it’s just going to help him going into the summer so we can work on different things with him. Just that confidence and knowing he can play at this level. It’s still going to take a lot of time and a lot of reps.”
Some fans were disappointed that the Lakers kept James on the bench, briefly breaking out a chant of “We want Bronny” in the first quarter of Saturday’s 107-81 victory over the Chicago Bulls.
In summer league stints in San Francisco and then Las Vegas, the son of NBA career scoring leader LeBron James opened shooting 7 for 31 overall. That fueled talk — or reinforced the notion — the Lakers had wasted their 55th pick as a favor to the face of the franchise.
The younger James quieted some of that talk with his performances Wednesday against the Atlanta Hawks and the following night against the Cleveland Cavaliers.