LAS VEGAS \u2014 This wasn\u2019t the biggest part of the job Zach Guthrie had been hired for, but it was the most inevitable, the elephant in the room that needed to be dealt with.<\/p>\n
The South Bay Lakers were about to play the G League season opener in front of a sellout crowd with the most famous 55th selection of all time in the middle of it all. Bronny James\u2019 path to the court might have seemed like it was destined, a favor to the league\u2019s all-time leading scorer. But for the Los Angeles Lakers and for the rookie in the locker room, this was just supposed to all be one step in the developmental process, another deposit into the team\u2019s investment into a second-round pick it believed in.<\/p>\n
But Guthrie, as South Bay\u2019s head coach, had to acknowledge that this wasn\u2019t just any regular game, that the hype and the attention and the spotlight and the circus and the other stuff had to be addressed.<\/p>\n
So Guthrie hatched a plan. He had a staffer smuggle a balloon into the locker room beforehand. He hid a needle up his sleeve. And after he laid it all out, the attention, the \u201cBronny\u201d chants, the unavoidable distractions, Guthrie popped the balloon. (He even tested the needle beforehand to avoid a credibility-shattering mishap.)<\/p>\n
\u201cI let that sit there and I just popped the balloon,\u201d Guthrie remembered last season. \u201cAnd I was like, \u2018We can let that s\u2014 go right now. This is just basketball, right? \u2026 Not to go full Hoosiers on you, but it\u2019s still 10 feet (high), it\u2019s still 94 feet (long).\u201d<\/p>\n
The message to the players had been delivered \u2014 the only one who didn\u2019t need to hear it?<\/p>\n
Bronny James.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s always felt bigger when James took the court, the stakes feeling so high like he needed to justify his place in the public\u2019s attention with immediate results, when it was always so clear that this was going to require some patience. But the calluses from dealing with a lifetime of being LeBron James\u2019 eldest son have made him proficient, if not totally comfortable, with all of it.<\/p>\n
Thursday night in Las Vegas, one year after his face was on the banners despite being picked near the end of the second round, Bronny James opens his second NBA Summer League as not even the \u201cstar\u201d in his first game. The eyes, for a change, will be more focused on someone else \u2014 No. 1 pick Cooper Flagg.<\/p>\n
Don\u2019t expect the eyes to stay shifted. They always have swung back.<\/p>\n
James has lived in this as long as he can remember. It\u2019s the kind of attention that comes from being the main event his whole basketball-playing life, getting tested by players who want to prove themselves against his bloodline, getting praised by fans who feel like they\u2019ve known him since birth, dodging critics eager to transfer feelings about LeBron James onto him as he tried to carve an NBA career out for himself.<\/p>\n
Last week before Bronny James began his second summer as a professional, he admitted that some of his successes as a rookie \u2014 a 17-point game against the Milwaukee Bucks in March, nearly 22 points per game in the final 11 G League games he appeared \u2014 have given him confidence that he can impact games offensively. But it hasn\u2019t pushed him from the path he wants to walk.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s definitely made me think about being more aggressive on that end of the floor. But I can\u2019t lose that defensive drive that will get me on the floor,\u201d he said. \u201c\u2019Cause there\u2019s gonna be guys that can go out and score 15, 20 a game. \u2026 I\u2019m most likely not gonna be that guy right now, but to get myself on the floor, I have to be a defensive menace. And that\u2019s my main focus \u2013 getting in condition this year. It\u2019s been shown that I know how to score the ball a little bit. So understand, stand true to that, but also focus in on the defensive end.\u201d<\/p>\n
Video of James\u2019 quote went viral, the response almost universally positive, fans seeing the attitude Lakers coaches loved so much since they drafted him last year.<\/p>\n
\u201cCredit to him,\u201d Guthrie said. \u201cWith all the things swirling around him and all the things that have been, like, outside noise or like a mixing of rat poison, all this stuff, I think he\u2019s been able to block it out and focus on himself and his development.\u201d<\/p>\n
The issue is, and will be for awhile anyway, is that it\u2019s simply too hard for other people to block all of that out and view James in isolation. While the Lakers picked him last year to make LeBron James happy, they also picked Bronny James because of the safe-ish bet on an athletic guard with a plus wingspan, a high character and a willingness to work.<\/p>\n
Whether with Guthrie in the G League or with development coach Ty Abbott and the main roster, James has earned big fans by his work behind the scenes.<\/p>\n
The trajectory a year ago, from a manufactured opening night moment to James starting off the Lakers\u2019 summer with a steal and a spiked one-hand dunk in transition, has validated some of that gamble.<\/p>\n
\nBronny’s first bucket of Summer League \ud83d\udd25 https:\/\/t.co\/JpoNKBNGyb<\/a> pic.twitter.com\/gvlINktLvM<\/a><\/p>\n