The Los Angeles Lakers’ head coach, JJ Redick, has just announced the 2024-2025 season’s starting lineup, and fans are not too pleased.
On Tuesday, Sept. 24, Redick did an interview with ESPN’s “The Lowe Post” podcast, where he revealed that the starting lineup members would be LeBron James, Anthony Davis, D’Angelo Russell, Austin Reaves, and Rui Hachimura.
He said, “Yeah. It will be the starting five that went 23-10 last year.”
This is one of the first major moves Redick has made since being newly hired this past June, and while it’s a solid lineup, not every fan seems to be happy with it.
With LeBron’s son Bronny James being drafted to the Lakers this summer — which made history as this is the first time a father and son will play in the NBA together — several fans of the James household believed the 19-year-old’s name should have been part of the starting five.
Under an Instagram post from Bleacher Report, one fan wrote, “Seriously? No Bronny? Are they trying to lose every game??” A second fan said, “You gotta put Bronny in starting lineup , if not they gonna lose every game.”
Another comment read, “Bronny got Robbed,” to which a fan responded, “love your content but bronny ain’t better than nobody on this starting 5 my guy.”
Other people agreed with the sentiments that LeBron’s eldest son was not ready to play as a starter yet. “Bronny be 6th man while he gets used to actual NBA game speed and when his pops retire they cut him,” wrote one fan while another said, “come on now he may have got a decent check for a second round pick, but it ain’t good enough to start with your daddy.”
During the 23-24 season, Bronny played as a guard in his freshman year for the University of Southern California. There he started six games out of the 25 that he played, scored 41 field goals, 16 three-pointers, 23 free throws and a total of 71 rebounds. As for percentage per game he got 36.6 percent in field goals, 26.7 percent in three-point field goals, and 67.6 percent in free throws.
His father, on the other hand, attended St. Vincent-St. Mary High School from 1999-2003. During his freshman year there, he averaged 18 points per game and 6.2 rebounds per game, in addition to 51.6 percent in field goal shooting, 32.3 percent in three-point shooting, and 79.7 percent in free throws.
LeBron has yet to publicly respond to Redick’s recent announcement, but one thing the three-time Olympic gold medalist has to look forward to this season is playing on the court with his son. It’s a historic experience that the NBA veteran has stated would be a dream of his.
Redick did not confirm when exactly it would happen, but assured fans the moment will come in due time. In the podcast he said, “In terms of that moment, yeah, we’ve talked about it, and we’ve thought about it and we’ll get it done. Don’t want to commit to anything right now, but that’s going to happen, and that’s going to happen sooner rather than later.”
In the meantime, Bronny will be playing for the South Bay Lakers this season in the G League, which Redick explains is not to be looked at as a downgrade. “The G League is not a demotion by any stretch. We are in the same building,” he said. “We should be the model for integration between the NBA team and the G League team. I look at Zach (Guthrie) as an extension of my staff/That team is an extension of our team. I would expect us to use the G League for very specific reasons.”
“I think Bronny is a young guy, I’m very high on him as a basketball player. He’s kind of like our first player that we get to mold and help develop. So we’re going to look at the G League as a tool in our player development system,” Redick explained.
According to the G League website, “The NBA G League, formerly the NBA Development League or NBA D-League, is the NBA’s official minor league, preparing players, coaches, officials, trainers and front office staff for the NBA while acting as the league’s research and development laboratory.”
