JJ Redick Reveals Plans for LeBron and Bronny James to Share the Floor This Season
The NBA season will be here in just over a month, so it’s no surprise that Los Angeles Lakers coach JJ Redick found his way back to a podcast. Redick was a guest on ESPN’s The Lowe Post on Tuesday to talk about how he got into coaching, how he ended up with the Lakers, and what to expect from his first season on an NBA bench wearing a suit exclusively.
One of the most high-profile issues Redick will have to handle in his first year is guard Bronny James. While Redick mentioned guard Max Christie and guard Jalen Hood-Schifino as young players who have a chance to earn a spot in the rotation this season—and praised first-round forward Dalton Knect for being an exemplary shooter—Lowe had to specifically ask about James to find out what the plan was for the Angeles’s G-League team, with Redick saying he considers the G-League team and coaching staff an extension of the Lakers.
“I would expect us to use the G-League for very specific reasons,” Redick told Lowe. “I think Bronny is a young guy I’m very high on… as a basketball player. And I said this at his press conference. I said, he’s kind of like our first player that we get to mold and help develop. And so we’re going to look at the G-League as a tool in our player development system.”
While Redick didn’t announce any specific timetables or schedules for the younger James’s development, he did reveal that there had been conversations about getting him on the court with father LeBron James—and it sounds like it will happen early in the season.
“In terms of that moment, yeah, we’ve talked about it and we’ve thought about it,” Redick said. “We’ll get it done. I don’t want to commit to anything right now but that is going to happen and is going to happen sooner rather than later.”
Witht hat in mind, it sounds like Los Angeles will get Bronny on the court with LeBron as soon as they can so they can savor the moment… and then move on to the regular rotation.
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