Why Lakers are giving Bronny James preferential treatment

The Lakers’ decision to keep Bronny James away from G League road games has sparked some debate about the level of preferential treatment the franchise is giving to LeBron’s son.

Bronny, 20, played just one collegiate season at USC in which he did not light up the stat sheet before being selected No. 55 overall by the Lakers in the 2024 NBA Draft.

ESPN’s Shams Charania shed more light on the Lakers’ thinking when it comes to Bronny’s usage, as he’s played sparingly during his time with the NBA club while splitting time with their G League team, the South Bay Lakers.

“Bronny James isn’t just your normal, everyday G League player,” Charania said on “The Pat McAfee Show” on Tuesday.

“I don’t know if it’s a security thing, but there’s a different level of fanfare when he’s on the road for these G League games, a different level of everything when he’s with that G League team. How do you manage that on the road? I don’t think the door is necessarily completely shut on him playing in those road games as the G League season goes on, but as of right now that is the plan that the Lakers have laid out, and they want him to continue to shuttle back and forth, spend as much time on the active roster as possible.”

Fellow ESPN reporter Brian Windhorst first reported on “The Hoop Collective” podcast last week that Bronny would not be boarding the commercial flights G League teams use to travel for road games, something Windhorst — who has covered LeBron since his high school days — believes is “detrimental” to Bronny.

He also said he now thinks the special treatment Bronny is getting from the Lakers has gone “too far.”

In Bronny’s most recent G League game Sunday against the Stockton Kings, he had four points on 2-for-10 shooting in 25 minutes, adding two rebounds and two assists.

He hasn’t appeared in an NBA game since Nov. 10, when he logged just 1:40, and he has played in six of the Lakers’ 14 games this season, averaging less than three minutes a game.

One school of thought is to have Bronny be a full-time G League player so he can develop, but Charania says that would be unusual for a second-round draft pick.

“It is very typical for a second-round pick to shuttle back and forth with the G League, but it would be atypical of a second-round pick potentially just only spending time in the G League,” he said Tuesday. “I think people are like, ‘Why isn’t he just only in the G League?’ Well, you’re a second-round pick. He’s got three years guaranteed on his deal. He’s an NBA player that’s gonna spend time in the G League.”