After much sturm and drang over why he wasn't playing in G League road games, LeBron's elder son did in fact play in his first road game Thursday night and erupted for 30 points in a 106-100 loss at the Valley Suns. He started and shot 13-of-23 in 25 minutes (57%) while adding 3 rebounds and 2 assists.
Prior to Thursday, he had scored 14 total points in four G League games.
All of those were at home, which led to a lot of criticism from around the NBA.
Charles Barkley called the decision "awful" and "stupid."
"The kid is not ready to play in the NBA. He should be in the G-League so he can play basketball," Barkley said during an appearance on "The Bettor Angle" over the weekend.
"And also, this thing where he's only gonna play homes games. It's stupid, it's not fair to him. It's not fair to the team. Can you imagine the coach of that team? You come off a road trip and you have a player you haven't seen in a week or two. And then you probably feel like you gotta play him," he continued. "I don't think they are doing Bronny any favors. They have just handled this thing very bad. It's a bad look for the Lakers. I really like everything LeBron has done. But it's a bad look for him [too], in my opinion."
Barkley was not the first to criticize the move, which the Lakers said they're doing in part because bringing Bronny on the road in the G League could pose security risks.
ESPN's Brian Windhorst, who has covered LeBron since high school, said Bronny was receiving "special treatment" that will be "detrimental" to his long-term development.
"I'm gonna apply the brakes on my 'everything is fine on the Bronny front' with this thing that is now happening, which is that from my understanding, he's only gonna play in the South Bay Lakers home games, that he's only gonna kind of be a part-time G League player, and he's not getting on United Airlines and going to fly and go see these other teams, play in these road games," Windhorst said on "The Hoop Collective" podcast.
"Honestly, I know he was getting somewhat special treatment and nepotism, that's fine," added Windhorst. "I don't care. It's normal. Now, I think it's actually detrimental to him. I don't like that. I don't know whose idea it was. Obviously the Lakers are fine with it, they're doing it.
"On this particular instance, I think that's gone too far, and I don't think that benefits Bronny, I don't think it benefits the South Bay Lakers and I don't think it benefits LeBron at that point."
The 6-foot-2, 20-year-old guard has appeared in seven games for the Lakers this season, averaging 0.6 points per game in 2.6 minutes per game.
"I think it'd be much better if Bronny was a more developed player by February or March by playing in G League road games," Windhorst said.
Thank you for relying on us to provide the journalism you can trust. Please consider supporting us with a subscription.