The training wheels are coming off a bit for Bronny James.
NBA writer Chris Haynes reported on Wednesday that the Los Angeles Lakers rookie Bronny is set to make his G League road debut later this week. Bronny will be suiting up for the South Bay Lakers on Thursday against the Valley Suns in Phoenix.
That marks a noteworthy change-of-stance by the Lakers, who had initially decided on a different plan for Bronny. Last month, we had heard that the Lakers were giving Bronny special treatment by only having him play in G League home games and allowing him to skip out on traveling with the G League team for road games. Indeed, Bronny has made three G League appearances to this point, all at home in the Lakers’ El Segundo facility. Bronny has averaged 8.7 points, 3.0 rebounds, and 2.7 assists in 26.3 minutes per game over those three appearances.
The 20-year-old Bronny also continues to sit on the bench for the actual Lakers and made his first NBA game appearance in nearly a month on Dec. 7 (going scoreless with a block in three mop-up-duty minutes vs. Portland). The back-and-forth is now expanding though, and Bronny will be playing in a G League game in Phoenix (a few hundred miles east of Los Angeles) later this week.
