Bronny James is trying his best to make his own name for himself, but even he is admitting that he is affected by the criticism that he gets.
The Los Angeles Lakers rookie Bronny spoke this week in an extended interview with Joe Vardon of The Athletic. During the interview, Bronny addressed the negativity that he gets from critics, acknowledging that he sees all of it.
“My first thought about everything is I always try to just let it go through one ear and out the other, put my head down and come to work and be positive every day,” said Bronny. “But sometimes it just, it fuels me a little bit. I see everything that people are saying. People think, like, I’m a f–king robot, like I don’t have any feelings or emotions.
“But I just take that and use it as fuel for me to go out, wake up every day and get to the gym early, get my extra work in, watch my extra film every day, get better every day,” Bronny went on. “That’s what [Lakers GM] Rob [Pelinka] wants me to do as a young guy, coming in, playing in the G League, and learning from afar on the bench watching the Lakers play.”
You can read Bronny’s full interview with Vardon here.
As the son of LeBron James, Bronny, 20, faces constant barbs of nepotism. Those are probably pretty fair too considering that Bronny got a standard roster spot with the Lakers (not even a two-way contract) despite having nothing in his game yet to indicate that he is deserving of one. Through his first 21 NBA appearances, Bronny holds microscopic averages of 1.6 points and 0.4 assists per game on 26/23/73 shooting splits. Though Bronny’s numbers in the G League this season look much better (20.6 points and 5.1 assists per game), he is objectively not an NBA-caliber player at this point in his career.
Bronny’s father LeBron has not exactly helped matters either. He helped steer his son to the Lakers and also made ridiculous comments in the past that Bronny (as a teenager) was supposedly better than many current NBA players. That has only put a bigger target on Bronny’s back and led to his struggles being magnified by the greater public.
While it is still very unclear what Bronny’s NBA career will ultimately look like, the USC product is starting to come into his own a bit lately. Bronny recently went viral for his savage response to a heckler on the road, and it sounds like his primary focus is to (eventually) prove his worth by putting in the work behind the scenes.
