Lakers' LeBron James: Bronny James 'Has So Much Room to Grow' at 19 Years Old

Los Angeles Lakers superstar LeBron James discussed the continued development of his son and teammate, Bronny James, as Bronny gets his first taste of NBA action in the summer league.

Speaking to reporters in London, where the United States Olympic men's basketball team is on hand for a pair of exhibition games, LeBron said the following about where Bronny stands and what the future potentially holds for him:

"The most important thing for him is to continue to get better and better every day," LeBron said. "Games, practices, film sessions, during his individual workouts. He's 19 years old, so he has so much room to grow. He has so much more to learn, but the best thing is he just keeps his head down and just stays focused, the work will pay off."

The Lakers selected Bronny with the No. 55 overall pick in the 2024 NBA draft after he played just one season at USC. If Bronny sees game action for the Lakers during the 2024-25 season, LeBron and Bronny will become the first father-son duo to play for the same team at the same time in NBA history.

Following a rough start in summer league, Bronny has been much better the past two games and seems to be settling in.

Over his first four summer league outings, Bronny was averaging just 4.3 points per game, while shooting 22.6 percent from the field and missing all 15 of his three-point attempts.

He finally broke out with a strong showing Wednesday, scoring 12 points on 5-of-11 shooting from the floor and 2-of-5 shooting from deep, as the Lakers beat the Atlanta Hawks 87-86.

Bronny was even better Thursday, as he finished with 13 points on 5-of-10 shooting to go along with five rebounds, three assists and two blocks in L.A.'s 93-89 win over the Cleveland Cavaliers.

After starring at Sierra Canyon in Los Angeles, Bronny entered the college ranks with a ton of hype surrounding him, but he faced adversity prior to the season when he went into cardiac arrest during a workout last summer.

Bronny recovered and was eventually cleared to play, but he missed the first eight games of the season and never truly found his stride, averaging just 4.8 points, 2.8 rebounds and 2.1 assists per game in 25 contests.

LeBron's desire to be teammates with his son has long been known, but it still came of something of a surprise when Bronny entered the draft and stayed in the draft pool since he seemingly would have gained a lot with another year of college.

Instead, Bronny will learn on the fly with limited experience against high-level competition under his belt.

Bronny will likely always be compared to his father, but it isn't really a fair comparison since arguably no player in NBA history did a better job of living up to the hype and being a top performer right out of the gates.

Bronny is an entirely different player than his father and will have to grind in order to carve out a role for himself, but as he has shown through his improvement over the course of summer league thus far, he does have the tools to potentially be a useful NBA player.