Bronny James is going to deal with a tremendous amount of pressure if and when he gets to the NBA, and Shannon Sharpe believes there is one way in which the USC freshman’s father is not doing him any favors.
Jonathan Givony of ESPN on Monday released his first NBA mock draft for 2025. The analyst notably included Bronny as a second-round pick, which means Givony expects the 19-year-old to play another year in college.
The big change made headlines across the basketball world, which apparently annoyed Bronny’s father LeBron. The elder James told the media to “let the kid be a kid and enjoy college basketball.” LeBron also said Bronny is not concerned with mock draft projections.
Sharpe seems to think LeBron is the one who talks about Bronny too much. On the latest episode of his “Nightcap” show with co-host Chad Johnson, Sharpe warned LeBron “to be careful” with the way the Los Angeles Lakers star hypes up his son.
“LeBron has to be careful when Bronny plays well and then you say, ‘Well, he’s better than some players in the NBA,’ because people are gonna remember you said that,” Sharpe said. “I understand that’s his son, but you have to be careful of that because they’re like, ‘Hold on, what a minute, a high school kid is as good as players in the NBA?’
“You could have said that about LeBron — that LeBron as a high school senior was as good as some players in the NBA and you woulda been absolutely right. But because Bronny doesn’t possess his dad’s athleticism or size, it’s different. He gon get strays because of you.”
Sharpe was referring to a comment LeBron made last year, when the four-time MVP wrote on social media that Bronny is “definitely better than some of these cats I’ve been watching on league pass today.” That was before Bronny even began his collegiate career at USC.
Bronny is going to be under the microscope when he gets to the NBA no matter what LeBron says and does. If LeBron mentioned NBA players by name and said his son is better than them, that would be a different story. We doubt any current players are going to be motivated by LeBron’s praise of Bronny.
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