Lakers select Bronny James with No. 55 pick

In the least surprising move of the 2024 NBA Draft, the Lakers selected Bronny James with the No. 55 pick.

The Lakers will officially have the first father-son duo in NBA history after selecting Bronny James, son of LeBron, with the No. 55 pick in Thursday’s second round of the 2024 NBA Draft.

It’s a move that comes with little surprise as Klutch Sports’ Rich Paul, agent for both Bronny and LeBron, has largely angled for this outcome. And now, LeBron will fulfill his goal of playing on an NBA team with his son.

This pick has probably been the worst-kept secret in the NBA. From the moment Paul started limiting which teams Bronny would work out for, the likelihood of him becoming a Lakers exponentially increased.

On Thursday itself, Bob Myers revealed on ESPN’s draft show that Paul was telling teams not to draft Bronny or they would go to Australia. It seems pretty clear this has long been the plan between Bronny, Paul and the Lakers.

At the No. 55 pick, it’s a low-risk, high-reward selection. It’s incredibly difficult to find a contributing player that late in the draft. Just in a vacuum, the Lakers are drafting a prospect who, 18 months ago, was a top-10 pick in DraftExpress’ mock draft.

He suffered a health scare that derailed his freshman season, but his potential remains. That alone should make selecting him worth the gamble, given, again, that it’s the very backend of the second round.

Bronny’s stats from last year certainly do not jump off the page. He averaged just 4.8 points, 2.8 rebounds and 2.1 assists per game in 19.3 minutes per game across 25 contests. He also shot only 26.7% from the field. The asterisk to these stats is that he joined the team mid-season, which is important context.

But he is also far from being a contributing NBA player. The Lakers pick is a bet that their player development program can mold him into an actual player. It’ll likely require multiple years in the G League. The Lakers have a track record of finding diamonds in the rough, but this will be one of their toughest challenges.

And draft experts had pretty honest takes on Bronny. Sam Vecenie of The Athletic had Bronny No. 72 on his big board. Here’s a snippet of his thoughts on Bronny:

He is nowhere near ready for the NBA. He’s at least two years away if every single thing goes right with his development in the next couple of seasons. For him to get the development he needs on the ball and to iron out his consistency as a shooter, he must spend the next two years in the G League. To me, that’s not a worthwhile investment given that his upside is something in the ballpark of a rotational 3-and-D guard. That upside is littered with potential landmines. I couldn’t rank him outside of the top 75 on my board because he’s young, athletic and clearly has excellent basketball IQ in addition to a great motor on the defensive end at 19

DraftExpress was slightly more generous in their ranking, slotting him at 55th overall on their big board.

James made strides as a senior in high school and had impressive showings in the spring all-star circuit, but he had a difficult time finding his footing at USC, especially as a scorer. His strong feel for the game, length, frame, budding shot-making prowess and competitiveness defensively give him plenty of things to work with in the long term if he can get back on the encouraging track he was on before his cardiac arrest.

It’s hard to be too upset about who they take with the No. 55 pick, as it does not typically lead to contributing players. But it’s impossible to ignore that Bronny is not your typical No. 55 pick either.

You can follow Jacob on Twitter at @JacobRude.