The 2024-25 NBA season is here. We take our annual trip too close to the sun, daring you to endure the swell of these views. This is Hot Takes 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 to social media of the two of them from both 2004 and 2024.
The caption read, “Time flies.”
News: It doesn’t. And that is actually what makes this achievement so remarkable.
Facebook was a fledgling company when Bronny was born in October 2004. YouTube didn’t exist. The iPhone would not be invented for another three years. Instagram debuted in 2010. This was forever before
But every moment between them is now another opportunity to remind us that yes, LeBron and Bronny are teammates. Did you hear about the time LeBron drove a baseline on his son? Or the time Bronny made a 3-pointer over his dad? Of course you did, because both became titles the moment we found out about each one.
If you’re already tired of keeping up with the Jameses, imagine how the Lakers feel. Don’t get me wrong: it will be extremely cool to see LeBron and Bronny share the court for the first time in the regular season. It will be funny to see the first aid of a father to his son. That news 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 so good when, say, they’re asked about Bronny’s movement to and from the G-League as the losses mount under first-year head coach JJ Redick. Or when LeBron has to rest a sore left ankle. Or when D’Angelo Russell is benched.
Correct: The Lakers are a sideshow. They have no chance to win 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.
Remember, LeBron turns 40 in December. He can play with his son because, by the end of the season, he’s probably played more minutes in the NBA than anyone ever has. He’s still really 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 may be, there’s no mistaking the recent decline he’s experienced.
The Lakers’ 17th-rated defense last season reflected LeBron’s inability or unwillingness to consistently exert maximum effort to that end. The 71 games he played in 2023-24 were the exception to a rule that had sidelined him for twice as many games per season over the previous four years. His advanced stats in that four-year window are easily his worst since his rookie season, when he won 35 games at Bronny’s age.
It’s no coincidence that the Lakers have been in the play-in tournament in three of the past four years. They failed to make the postseason entirely in 2022. Last season ended in a five-game, first-round playoff exit.
And how did the Lakers respond to the shortcomings of last season? Not by making a single trade or free-agent signing but by adding a first-time head coach, the #17 overall pick in the draft and LeBron’s son.
Oh, and they gave James a two-year, $104 million extension that takes him through his 41st birthday.
FYI: Here are the first-year records of each head coach without previous coaching:
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Steve Nash (48-24), lost in the second round
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Derek Fisher (17-65), did not 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), did not make the playoffs
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Vinny Del Negro (41-41), lost in the first round
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Isiah Thomas (41-41), lost in the first round
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Doc Rivers (41-41), did not make the finals
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Larry Bird (58-24), lost in the conference finals
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ML Carr (33-49), did not make the finals
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Quinn Buckner (13-69), did not make the playoffs
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Magic Johnson (5-11), did not make the playoffs
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Then Issel (36-46), did not make the finals
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Dick Van Arsdale (14-12), did not make the playoffs
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Paul Silas (36-46), did not make the finals
More often than not the team got worse under their new head coach.
Maybe Redick is an exception. Russell told reporters that he sent Redick a text message from the golf course, thanking him for designing a play he had never seen before, which is a strange sentence to write. His admiration for the new coach makes him want to play harder on defense than he ever has before.
Then again, Russell is in his 10th NBA season. He is who he is. And Redick, as far as I know, is not God.
Redick became defensive 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, Hachimura just needs to be in a better position to succeed, and maybe he’s right. Or maybe thinking there are quick fixes to what ailed these Lakers , it’s madness.
Even if Redick represents an upgrade at the coaching position — and he very well could — it’s not a blow given the fact that this team has won a single playoff game. a game last season in what were the best and healthiest seasons LeBron and Anthony Davis have enjoyed since winning a title together in 2020.
The 76 games Davis played last season was a career high. What are the odds that someone who missed an average of 28 games per season from 2018-23 can avoid missing that amount of time again? The Lakers got the best seasons they could ask for from their two best players and still couldn’t avoid an early exit.
When things get rough, and they will get rough — they always do during an 82-game season — what do the rest of the Lakers do about a team that traded every available asset for LeBron’s preferred playing partner, hire their podcast. -host as their head coach and drafted his son in the second round?
LeBron is the culture of the Lakers, and he is 40 years old. But he has Bronny, which means the highlight of their season will happen on opening night, before Los Angeles takes its sideshow on the road.
