BARKLEY BLASTS LAKERS’ BRONNY STRATEGY

Charles Barkley has joined the growing number of critics unhappy with the Los Angeles Lakers’ management of Bronny James this season.

Bronny’s selec­tion by the Lak­ers in the sec­ond round of the 2024 NBA Draft to play along­side his father, LeBron James, was wide­ly antic­i­pat­ed. Many fathers in LeBron’s posi­tion would like­ly make the same deci­sion. How­ev­er, the frus­tra­tion with the Lak­ers using a draft pick on Bron­ny, who had an unre­mark­able sea­son at USC, is evi­dent. While sign­ing him to the ros­ter might have been under­stand­able, draft­ing him in the sec­ond round was ques­tion­able.

The moment Bron­ny and LeBron shared the court as the first father-son duo in an NBA game was spe­cial, and even Barkley acknowl­edges that. But since then, the pref­er­en­tial treat­ment has been exces­sive.

“They’ve han­dled it ter­ri­bly,” Barkley said on ‘The Bet­tor Angle’ pod­cast. “The cer­e­mo­ny for his first game was nice, but the kid is not ready for the NBA. He should be in the G League, where he can actu­al­ly play bas­ket­ball and improve. Sit­ting on the bench won’t help him get bet­ter.”

Barkley empha­sized that Bron­ny needs play­ing time to devel­op, and the G League is the right place for that. Cur­rent­ly, Bron­ny is play­ing with the South Bay Lak­ers in the G League, but only dur­ing home games. He then joins the NBA Lak­ers, where he most­ly sits on the bench, occa­sion­al­ly get­ting a few min­utes in blowout sit­u­a­tions.

Barkley, like many oth­ers, finds this approach baf­fling.

“This idea of him only play­ing home games is ridicu­lous. It’s unfair to him and the team,” Barkley said. “Imag­ine being the coach and hav­ing a play­er who dis­ap­pears for road trips and then sud­den­ly reap­pears. It’s not ben­e­fi­cial for any­one.”

Barkley believes this sit­u­a­tion reflects poor­ly on both the Lak­ers and LeBron.

“It’s a bad look for the Lak­ers. I respect every­thing LeBron has done, but this is not a good look for him,” Barkley added.

Bron­ny has played in five of the Lak­ers’ 16 games this sea­son, nev­er exceed­ing five min­utes of play­time in any game. The Lak­ers had a strong start with a six-game win­ning streak ear­li­er this month but have lost their last two games, bring­ing their record to 10–6 for the sea­son.

Prop­er train­ing and devel­op­ment are cru­cial for any pro­fes­sion­al play­er, and Bronny’s sit­u­a­tion high­lights the impor­tance of a well-struc­tured train­ing process. Young play­ers need con­sis­tent play­ing time and oppor­tu­ni­ties to grow, which is essen­tial for their long-term suc­cess in the league.