By John HollingerMar 12, 2024
Break up the Lakers! In what is becoming an annual rite of spring in Southern California, L.A. has won 12 of 17, including a pair of tough weekend matchups against the Milwaukee Bucks and Minnesota Timberwolves, to revive its flagging playoff hopes.
Yes, nitpickers might point out that they still have a negative point differential on the season, they only have six home games left and, in the impossible, bizarre new math of a league where a pod of horrible teams boosts everyone else’s record, the Lakers are just one of 15 teams that are six games over. 500.
But stay with me here: LeBron James and Anthony Davis are healthy, the vibes are good, and the Lakers, at least for a moment, can speak of catching at least one of Phoenix, Sacramento or Dallas in the standings as part of an encore to last year’s run to the Western Conference finals.
All that is well and good, but there’s another longer-term story developing that might be equally compelling, and this past weekend, two scenes from that movie stood out on this Oscars weekend in L.A. Those two story arcs, from two games, combine to potentially upend what our initial expectations of what the next Lakers offseason might look like.
The first came on Friday night in Crypto.com Arena when D’Angelo Russell floated in the game-winning basket over Milwaukee’s Damian Lillard to cap a majestic 44-point performance while James sat out with a bothersome ankle injury. Originally thought to be the Lakers’ most tradeable 2024 offseason contract, Russell has been so good lately that the script has flipped — from worries at the trade deadline that no other team would want his deal to new concern that he could opt out of his $18.6 million for next season and walk as an unrestricted free agent.
The second scene came Saturday just two miles away, in the first half of USC’s game against Arizona at the Galen Center. Late in the first half, Trojans freshman guard Bronny James darted into the passing lane and stole a wayward Arizona pass, took two hard dribbles toward the rim on a breakaway, loaded up off two feet and slammed it home. His famous father, sitting in a blue track suit on the sideline on the same side of half court, took it all in.
The steal was a turning point in a huge upset win for USC over No. 5 Arizona — the first time the Trojans had beaten a top-five team since 2008 — and it offered a glimpse of the promise that could one day, maybe, make the younger an NBA player alongside his famous father.
BRONNY JAMES.
STEAL + SLAM‼️
📺: ESPN📱: https://t.co/cGFArRkDBb pic.twitter.com/TBsZqYsI9g
— USC Men’s Basketball (@USC_Hoops) March 10, 2024
Alas, that day is not tomorrow, because that glimpse was just that — a brief hint at long-term upside that remains mostly untapped. That takes us to the other reckoning point in our offseason expectations for L.A.: the one surrounding LeBron’s hopes of playing with his son in the NBA.
Let’s just say that day doesn’t seem imminent. Yes, there was a son of a world-famous NBA champion and Hall of Fame forward who was a massive factor in USC’s 78-65 win … but that son was senior forward D.J. Rodman, who had the game of his life in his final home game in cardinal and gold with 18 points on 7-of-8 shooting.
As for the younger James, he had one of his better games of late … but we’re damning with faint praise here. He finished with five points, a veritable outburst after scoring six in the previous five games combined. His other bucket was a deep stepback 3 just before halftime that gave USC a working margin it would never relinquish.
Bronny from D33P before the halftime buzzer sounded 👀🚨
📺: ESPN📱: https://t.co/cGFArRk5LD pic.twitter.com/mLbnCBtt9q
— USC Men’s Basketball (@USC_Hoops) March 10, 2024
Bronny also soared above the rim for several of his six defensive rebounds, and his defense kept him on the court for 20 minutes — the most he’s played in nearly a month.
“This is the best Bronny has played in a while,” USC coach Andy Enfield said. “He hit that big 3 at the end of the first half to give us some momentum. He was terrific in all aspects, he really defended, and all of those rebounds were at or above rim level, out of his area.”
Here’s the thing: The clock is running out on USC’s season, and the younger James hasn’t established himself as any kind of draftable player for 2024. Change his last name from James to Jones, and he’d still certainly show up on teams’ 2025 watch lists due to his explosive leaping ability, good head for the game, defensive potential and unflappable demeanor. But nobody would have him in their top 60 for 2024.
There are some positives here, but we’re talking about a player averaging 4.8 points a game with 36-29-62 shooting splits for Kenpom.com’s 83rd-ranked team (nestled in between noted powerhouses Appalachian State and Yale). The 24 NBA scouts credentialed for the game Saturday were there to see a USC player, but it wasn’t James; it was his freshman teammate Isaiah Collier, a likely lottery pick who punctuated the win with a flying breakaway slam of his own while scoring 16 points.
Normally, it would be a no-brainer for somebody like this to come back to USC for another year. But it would delay LeBron’s well-known wish of playing with his son at some point; while the 39-year-old forward seems indestructible, he nonetheless likely has a career expiration date in the not-too-distant future.
With the Lakers at home and off on Saturday evening, the elder James rolled into his courtside seat at USC just before tip-off and stayed throughout, clapping at the end of the fight song as the Trojans celebrated the upset win and high-fiving players as they walked off.
It was the last regular-season game for the Trojans (as well as their last Pac-12 home game ever), with possibly just one game left in their season. USC is 14-17 and has no hope of going to the NCAA Tournament unless it unexpectedly wins four straight games and storms to the Pac-12 tournament title in Las Vegas this week; more realistically, the ninth-place Trojans’ noon Wednesday tilt against eighth-seeded Washington could be the season finale.
The question of where the younger James’ career arc fits in the elder James’ plans has been a point of interest all year, both for the Lakers and their rivals.
Low-key, one of the most popular thought exercises in front offices has been whether a team would draft Bronny James, with two potential angles. The first is that the Lakers would likely overpay said team to acquire Bronny and not risk his father leaving in free agency to join whatever team selected his son. The second notion, for a team with cap space, is that drafting Bronny could be the entrée to a free-agent coup that reels in the elder James, who can opt out of his contract this summer. While there’s an unseemly aspect to this — what, we’re taking hostages now? — even the execs who won’t admit to talking about it sure as heck have thought about it. These guys are sharks, trust me.
Recent comments by the James’ agent Rich Paul seem to have taken a more realistic view of things; whatever LeBron might want for his own career, the best development pathway for this son almost certainly doesn’t involve Bronny playing for the Lakers next season. It’s also not great allocation for the Lakers to use what would likely be a mid-first-round pick just to make LeBron happy, especially when giving him a three-year max at age 39 (the most they can do is $164 million over three years) already pencils out as an iffy proposition.
This takes us back to Russell. L.A’s other prominently discussed potential offseason pathway was trading his expiring deal, along with this year’s first-round pick and two futures, to reel in a third star to orbit LeBron and Davis. There are other ways to get there, but they aren’t simple; Russell is their only expiring 2025 contract of any significance, and his opting out would leave them at a disadvantage in any trade discussions. As far as alternatives go, Austin Reaves has trade value, but L.A. would be trying to cobble together the rest of a salary match with less desirable deals like those of Gabe Vincent or Rui Hachimura.
Yes, the Lakers could sign-and-trade Russell as well, but the timing of free agency a week after that draft makes that difficult to coordinate while including a 2024 first-rounder. Re-signing him to a more expensive long-term deal is another option, but that endgame probably means running it back with the same team.
Of course, I’m getting slightly ahead of myself. There’s still a month left in the regular season, and untold gallons of water remain to pass under the bridge between now and June. However, college basketball “free agency” basically starts this week — the transfer portal opens March 13. Thus, the importance of this past weekend’s two key scenes: Bronny’s final game this week will start the clock on a series of decisions that ultimately may impact what next year’s Lakers look like, while Russell’s recent run of excellence may force those decisions in a much different direction than previously thought.