FROM THE ABOVE ARTICLE:

I was wrong. Drafting Bronny James was a win for the Lakers

He has made 17 baskets.

He has played in the equivalent of less than three full games.

Seventeen Lakers have spent more time on the court. Sixteen Lakers have scored more points.

He has been but a speck of lint on the Lakers’ lapel, a bit of dust at the end of the Lakers’ bench, a small and irrelevant bystander in the Lakers’ long and arduous journey.

Yet, admit it, Bronny James has been huge.

The nepo baby whose arrival last summer was ripped across the NBA landscape has quietly risen above the criticism and gradually drowned out the noise.

The famous son whose selection as the 55th pick in the 2024 NBA draft was trashed in this space as “not very smart” has actually become part of something that borders on ingenious.

I was wrong. I was very wrong. There have been few things more right about this season than the saga of Bronny James.

He hasn’t made an NBA impact, but he hasn’t been a distraction, either. Arguably the league’s most disliked and discounted rookie when the season began, he has won over fans, impressed teammates, inspired his father, and silenced the media.

Shut me up, anyway.

Ten months ago, when the Lakers acquired the oldest son of their best player, I wrote that the move was an insensitive joke.

Ten months ago, I had the hottest of hot takes.

“It’s not very smart,” I wrote. “And, for two of the main people involved, it’s not very fair.”

I concluded my screed with, “Bronny is coming … the circus is starting.”

Turns out, the circus never arrived. The reality is, in one of its finest efforts, the Lakers’ management handled the sensitive situation with nimble smarts.

Everything about this strange arrangement has worked, every fear has been squelched, all awkwardness has disappeared, and the Lakers have been left with a happily productive father and a gratefully improving son.

Bronny James has been their most improved player simply by morphing from a punch line into, well, a player.

“Since Day 1, I’ve just been impressed with the person that he is,” coach JJ Redick told reporters last month. “And to deal with … frankly, bull— because of who his dad is and just keep a level head about it and be a class act says a lot about him, says a lot about that family …”

Maybe it was truly cool with Redick from Day 1, but for the rest of the league, Bronny’s arrival raised a giant red flag. After all, this was a 19-year-old kid who missed most of his only college season while recovering from a heart attack, and suddenly he was given a Lakers uniform and a guaranteed contract?

This initially seemed like at least partly a publicity stunt designed to enable Bronny and LeBron to become the first father-son duo to play together in the NBA. Except the Lakers surprisingly didn’t milk it, and actually enabled it when relatively few people were watching.

In the second quarter of the season opener against Minnesota in late October, with the town’s attention focused on the Dodgers, father and son checked in together and played nearly three minutes. Bronny returned to the bench for the rest of the night and that was that.

History made. Moving on. The Lakers won the game and Bronny barely made a ripple. The tone had been set. Nothing to see here.

“[I] tried not to focus on everything that’s going on around me, and tried to focus on going in as a rookie and not trying to mess up,” Bronny told reporters after his debut.

He was just trying not to mess up. That was his mantra the entire season, a pledge filled with the respectful humility that framed his image into that of a likable kid who was just here to hoop.

He was a nepo baby, but he didn’t act like it. He was the most famous son of the most famous basketball player in the world, yet he quietly behaved like just another lucky stiff.

This attitude quickly became apparent to the fans, who began cheering for him as if he was the team’s lovable mascot, which, in a sense, he was.

The consistently popular chant would surface late in Lakers blowouts, when arenas would fill with, “We want Bronny!” The league’s most criticized rookie became the most embraced, and even though he played in only 22 games and was on the court for double-digit minutes in only four of them, those cheers resonated.

Was he good? What did you expect? No, by NBA standards, with few rare exceptions, he wasn’t great. In one nightmarish game in Philadelphia, when he went 0-for-5 shooting while being consistently burned on defense in 15 awful minutes, he was miles from great.

But by fair standards — playing where he belonged in the developmental G League as a teenager with essentially no college experience and a history of heart failure — he was promising.

He played 18 of 50 games for the South Bay Lakers, and his last 11 were strong as he averaged 22 points, five rebounds and five assists. He scored 30 or more points three times, including 39 points in 38 minutes in a late March win against the Santa Cruz Warriors.

While standing on the court after that game, the rarely interviewed Bronny offered a compelling glimpse into his situation.

When asked by SpectrumSportsNet what he had been trying to prove, he said, “Just that I belong out there. That’s all I’m trying to prove. A lot of people say I don’t, but I just come out, work every day, try to get better every day and prove myself every day.”

So, yeah, he admitted, he’s felt the heat.

“All the criticism that’s thrown my way, it’s just amazing to shut all that down and keep going,” he said.

All this time, his father was watching. In fact, perhaps the biggest takeaway of the first year of the son’s appearance is the enormous effect it has had on the father.

LeBron has openly cheered for Bronny, as evident after the 39-point game when LeBron tweeted a note of support that read, in part, “SMILE THROUGH IT ALL … KEEP GOING!!”

LeBron has also fought for his son, accosting ESPN personality Stephen A. Smith at courtside of a recent Lakers game and rebuking him for making his criticism too personal.

In all, the appearance of Bronny has energized and invigorated LeBron, who is on pace to play 71 games, equaling the most since he came to Los Angeles seven years ago.

Statistically, LeBron is playing about as well as he’s ever played as a Laker. Defensively, he’s playing even better, as if every night he is trying to set an example for his son.

His emotional investment in this season was clear from his first comments after he and Bronny played together.

“That moment, us being at the scorer’s table together and checking in together, it’s a moment I’m never going to forget,” LeBron said. “No matter how old I get, no matter how my memory may fade as I get older or whatever, I will never forget that moment.”

Those moments have stacked upon each other in creating a vastly different equation than the one most imagined for Bronny and LeBron. Everyone thought the father would inspire his son. Instead, it’s been the other way around.

“I missed a lot of Bronny’s points because of my career over the course of his childhood and AAU games and high school and for me to see all the buckets he’s had as an NBA player with us, to be here with him, is super special,” James told reporters in New York in early February. “It’s probably the greatest thing I’ve ever been a part of.”

Nearly two months later, Bronny was scoring 17 in a short-handed loss to Milwaukee, quietly handling his rare success with humility and grace, cementing what everyone had come to believe.

No matter what happens during the rest of the season, the forced, frantic shotgun marriage between Bronny James and the Lakers has been a blissful success.

“There’s not really much I can do [about] people, random people, talking about me every day,” he told reporters. “Can’t really do much about that, so I just go in the gym and work, put my head down and try to get better.”

After watching Bronny James do just that — head down, work hard, get better — one can actually describe his first Lakers season with four words that few previously dared to string together.

Like father, like son.

I’d say Portland Detroit’s GMs have as good a shot. Maybe Nico and Rob co-win it lol.

Pelinka #1 Detroit #2 Harrison Honorable Mention:)

Forever disqualified due to Westbrook deal. But in general, just taking advantage of other’s stupidity doesn’t win you awards. Mitch didn’t win for Pau either.

FROM ABOVE ARTICLE:

It had been a while since we’d seen these Los Angeles Lakers.

There were recent flashes in wins against the Indiana Pacers, Memphis Grizzlies and Houston Rockets, but the group had been relatively uninspiring lately.

After looking like a potential contender in the middle portion of the season, including winning 20 of 24 games and posting the league’s best defense, the Lakers cooled after multi-week injuries to LeBron James and Rui Hachimura halted their momentum. Los Angeles was just 7-9 ahead of Sunday’s measuring-stick game against the Oklahoma City Thunder.

But a 126-99 statement win in Oklahoma City reminded the NBA of the Lakers’ incredible upside on both ends of the court.

They can drain a season-high 22 3-pointers on one end of the floor and limit MVP candidate Shai Gilgeous-Alexander to 26 points on 23 field-goal attempts and zero free-throw attempts on the other. They can ruthlessly mismatch-hunt against the league’s best defense and somehow successfully get away with playing a center (Jaxson Hayes) for only 13 minutes when their opponent starts two of them.

The Lakers might not be playing their best basketball of the season entering the playoffs, though there is still time to course-correct with four games left, but they remain capable of beating any team in the league emphatically when at their best.

“I thought we were very connected in both intent and in spirit on both ends of the floor,” Lakers coach JJ Redick said. “Very committed to what we were trying to do defensively and very committed to where we felt like we could generate good shots offensively against a terrific defense. And there wasn’t a let-up to that.”

Luka Dončić, who sent the Thunder home early last season in the Western Conference semifinals while playing for the Dallas Mavericks, had their defense in the torture chamber. Regardless of how they defended him — the Thunder mainly switched and blitzed, with a bit of drop coverage sprinkled in — he had the answer with a diabolical smirk on his face and a slew of trash talk.

When Isaiah Hartenstein switched onto him, Dončić drilled step-back 3-pointer after step-back 3-pointer in his face. When Chet Holmgren dropped against him, Dončić hit pull-up shots or used the additional space to get into the teeth of the defense, creating dump-off and kick-out pass opportunities. And when Oklahoma City dared blitz or trap him, Dončić found the closest teammate and the Lakers were off with a four-on-three or three-on-two advantage.

The Thunder looked helpless against Dončić. He eviscerated them with 30 points (11-of-20 shooting and 5-of-11 3-point shooting), seven rebounds and six assists. They couldn’t keep their preferred matchup, Lu Dort, on him because of the Lakers’ constant ball screens. Hartenstein and Holmgren were too slow-footed for his shiftiness. Every other Thunder defender was too small and/or weak.

“I think he relishes the challenge,” Redick said of Dončić. “You’re gonna get the best defender every night. You’re gonna get all the different coverages every night when you’re him. … Sometimes great players can get bored with that process, and so when you get like the fully engaged star in a big-time game, some special things can happen. And Luka did some special things like tonight.”

Dončić had several highlights, including a pirouetting turnaround jumper and an and-1 scoop layup, but the most notable was his no-look, over-the-head pass to Gabe Vincent in the corner while driving on the right side of the floor.

“I mean, I don’t think you can practice that pass, honestly,” Dončić said. “It’s just sometimes I decide some stuff, then I don’t know how I make it. I mean, I was just glad he made it because that’s a tough shot to make.”

For as great as the Thunder are defensively, the unique size of Dončić and James as primary ballhandlers gives them problems. Even the 6-foot-5 Austin Reaves, who theoretically should have a tougher time against the likes of NBA All-Defense-caliber defenders like Dort, Alex Caruso and Cason Wallace, had his way with their defense.

Dončić dominated the game until Reaves (20 points on 7-of-15 shooting), James (19 points on 9-of-16 shooting and seven assists) and the supporting cast — Dorian Finney-Smith scored 14 points, Gabe Vincent had 12 and Hachimura had 11 — carried them to their best win of the season.

“You attack pressure with pressure,” James said. “And also, nobody is faster than the ball. It comes to ball movement and things of that nature that combat a lot of the ball pressure. When the ball’s moving, the ball’s flying around. I thought we did a great job of being able to put the ball on the ground when the defense shifted, being able to find the extra guy on the perimeter either for shots or drive-and-kicks.

“When that ball is popping, that’s always a key to success.”

Entering the game, there were legitimate questions about the Lakers’ defense (and, for the record, there still are). They were 27th in defense since James and Hachimura returned on March 22. The Thunder ranked third in offense on the season and were fourth over their previous 15 games.

Gilgeous-Alexander made his fair share of shots, but the Lakers always had multiple defenders in the paint waiting on his drives and did a good job of contesting without fouling. He attempted zero free throws for the first time since Dec. 18, 2021. Holmgren and Jalen Williams combined for 26 points on 8-of-20 shooting. No other Thunder players were in double figures.

The Lakers switched, rotated and swarmed like they did when they were the league’s best defense from mid-January through early March. They were connected, communicating and covering for one another. They dictated the terms of engagement, funneling the ball to certain spots of the floor and certain shooters. After almost a month of below-average defense, they’ve finally shown life on that end recently, holding the Rockets to 98 points and the Thunder to 99 over the past week.

As several Lakers shared postgame, there were three points of emphasis for the Lakers’ defense. They wanted to keep the Thunder away from the rim, off the free-throw line and the offensive glass. The Lakers did a solid job in all three regards, holding the Thunder to 46 paint points, 12 free-throw attempts and nine offensive rebounds (four of which came during garbage time).

“Those are some of the controllables that you control,” James said of the Lakers’ defensive game plan.

One game doesn’t erase the Thunder’s historic season or prove the Lakers are back. But it can serve as a reference point — a popular Redick term — for the group.

With Dončić, the Lakers have beaten the Denver Nuggets, Minnesota Timberwolves, LA Clippers, New York Knicks, Grizzlies, Rockets and Thunder. They have the second-best record in the Western Conference against the West, with the next closest team, the Rockets, 3 1/2 games back, which bodes well for their postseason aspirations.

They currently hold the tiebreaker over every projected West playoff team aside from Oklahoma City and Houston, though they can win the tiebreaker over the Rockets if they beat them on Friday.

The Lakers (48-30) only need one more win to clinch a top-six seed in the West. If they go 2-2 or better over the final four games, they lock up the No. 3 seed (and if they win out, could even get to No. 2, depending on if Houston wins another game).

The Lakers will continue to prioritize health down the stretch over the regular season, casting some doubt on the availability of their rotation for the upcoming back-to-back in Oklahoma City and Dallas. Redick said the group is still determining its approach.

“Nothing set in stone,” Redick said. “Again, this is all day to day.”

“I don’t even know,” James said when asked about his plans for the back-to-back.

No matter how Tuesday’s rematch plays out, or the rest of the regular season, the Lakers, after a much-needed reminder, will begin the playoffs confident that their ceiling is as high as anyone else’s.