The 2024-2025 NBA season is here. We make our annual trip too close to the sun and challenge you to endure the sultry views. These are hot takes that we might actually believe.
When Los Angeles Lakers teammates LeBron and Bronny James became the first father-son duo in NBA history, ESPN posted side-by-side photos on social media of the two of them from both 2004 and 2024.
The caption read: ‘Time flies.’
News flash: that’s not the case. And that’s actually what makes this achievement so remarkable.
Facebook was a young company when Bronny was born in October 2004. YouTube didn’t exist yet. The iPhone wouldn’t be invented for another three years. Instagram debuted in 2010. This was forever past.
But every moment between them now is another opportunity to remind us that LeBron and Bronny are indeed teammates. Did you hear about the time LeBron baseline rode his son? Or the time Bronny made a three-pointer on his dad? Of course, because both became headlines the moment we heard about each.
If you’re already tired of keeping up with the Jameses, imagine how the Lakers feel. Don’t get me wrong, it will be super cool to see LeBron and Bronny share a court for the first time in the regular season. It will be fun to see a father assist his son for the first time. That novelty is fleeting – for us, not for them.
But the Lakers will be asked in every city about every development between father and son, good or bad. And it will become a burden, if it isn’t already. The feel-good story won’t feel as good if, for example, they’re asked about Bronny’s movement to and from the G League as losses mount under first-year head coach JJ Redick. Or when LeBron needs to rest a sore left ankle. Or when D’Angelo Russell is benched.
That’s right: the Lakers are an afterthought. They have no chance of winning a championship, and yet they will be the sport’s biggest story – even bigger than last season, when they lost in the first round of the playoffs.
Don’t forget, LeBron turns 40 in December. He gets to play with his son because by the end of the season he will probably have played more minutes in the NBA than anyone ever has. He’s still very good, a third-team All-NBA selection last season. His stats – 26-7-8 on 54/41/75 shooting splits – remain remarkable. But as slow as it is, there is no doubting the recent decline he has experienced.
The Lakers’ 17th-ranked defense last season reflected LeBron’s inability or unwillingness to consistently put forth maximum effort in that area. The 71 games he played in 2023-24 were the exception to a rule that has seen him sidelined twice as many games per season over the past four years. His advanced stats in that four-year span are by far the worst since his rookie season, when he won 35 games at Bronny’s age.
It’s no coincidence that the Lakers have played in the play-in tournament in three of the last four years. They failed to fully make the postseason in 2022. Last season ended in a five-game first-round playoff exit.
And how did the Lakers respond to last season’s shortcomings? Not by making a single trade or signing a free agent, but by adding a new head coach, the No. 17 overall pick in the draft and LeBron’s son.
Oh, and they gave James a two-year, $104 million extension that will last him past his 41st birthday.
FYI: Here are the first-year data for every head coach with no prior coaching experience:
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Steve Nasch (48-24), lost in the second round
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Dirk Visser (17-65), failed to make the playoffs
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Steve Kerr (67-15), NBA champions
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Jason Kidd (44-38), lost in the second round
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Mark Jackson (23-43), failed to make the playoffs
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Vinny Del Negro (41-41), lost in the first round
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Isia Thomas (41-41), lost in the first round
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Dock Rivers (41-41), failed to make the playoffs
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Larry Vogel (58-24), lost in the conference finals
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M. L. Carr (33-49), failed to make the playoffs
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Quinn Buckner (13-69), failed to make the playoffs
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Magic Johnson (5-11), failed to make the playoffs
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Then Issel (36-46), failed to make the playoffs
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Dick Van Arsdale (14-12), failed to make the playoffs
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Paul Silas (36-46), failed to make the playoffs
More often than not, the team has gotten worse under the new head coach.
Maybe Redick is an exception. Russell told reporters that he texted Redick from the golf course, thanking him for designing a play he’d never seen before, which is a weird sentence to write. His admiration for the new coach makes him want to play harder on defense than ever before.
On the other hand, Russell is in his 10th NBA season. He is who he is. And Redick, as far as I know, is not God.
Redick responded defensively when asked how Rui Hachimura can “take that next step,” as if the sixth-year pro doesn’t need to improve. In Redick’s eyes, all Hachimura needs to be in is a better position to succeed, and he may be right. Or maybe thinking there are quick fixes to what ails these Lakers is madness.
Even if Redick represents an upgrade at the coaching position — and he very well could — it’s not a problem that this team has won a single playoff. game last season in what were the best and healthiest seasons LeBron and Anthony Davis have enjoyed since winning a title together in 2020.
Davis’ 76 games last season were a career high. What are the chances that someone who missed an average of 28 games per season between 2018 and 2023 can avoid missing those types of games again? The Lakers got the best seasons they could ask for from their two best players and still couldn’t avoid an early departure.
When the going gets tough, and it sometimes will — which it always does over the course of an 82-game season — what do the rest of the Lakers think of a team that traded all available assets for LeBron’s favorite playing partner and his podcast colleague has hired? host as head coach and drafted his son in the second round?
LeBron is the culture of the Lakers and he’s about to turn 40 years old. But he has Bronny, which means the highlight of their season will come on opening night, before Los Angeles takes its sideshow on the road.
