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Bronny James has faced a lot of criticism in the past couple of months, but according to his father, he isn’t phased by it.
The Los Angeles Lakers rookie struggled mightily in his Summer League debut and looked every bit the part of a player who was only drafted due to his father.
But LeBron James says that his son is tuning out the noise, something he’s very adept at doing.
“I don’t know if people really understand Bronny,” he told ESPN at a USA Basketball practice for the upcoming Paris Olympics. “He doesn’t care. I actually care a little bit. When I came in [as a rookie], I wanted people to like me, and some of the things that people were saying about me kind of bothered me early on in my career. … He doesn’t give a f—.
“He does not care about nobody. He doesn’t even listen to that stuff. He’s like the coolest. He’s like the complete opposite of his dad. His dad will say something [to address the critics]. Bro does not care. … Everything that’s being said about him, he really does not care.”
Bronny James Is Tuning Out The Noise According To His Father
On one hand, that’s probably a healthy approach. If Bronny internalized all the criticism, it wouldn’t take long before he completely drowned in it.
But on the other hand, much of the criticism is completely valid.
“Just imagine if you were a kid, you were born into a situation where your dad was super famous, super wealthy and you the kid still had the drive to want to be able to accomplish things for yourself,” James continued. “I personally don’t know if I would’ve been able to do that if the roles were reversed.
“When I was coming up, I had no choice. I literally had no choice. … I had to make it out for me. My mom, my family, my hometown, my city. Bronny has all the choices in the world. If Bronny wants to stop right now or never played basketball or just wanted to be a gamer or wanted to be a chef or wanted to be nothing to whatever, he could have done that. … People don’t understand how hard that is and the commitment for him to be coming out of heart surgery less than a year ago, for him to be able to be in the NBA, the kid, he’s special.”
“But he doesn’t care. He doesn’t,” James continued. “It doesn’t bother him.”
Bronny seems like a good kid. And he clearly works hard on his game. But his mentality will only matter if he has the game to match, and so far that doesn’t appear to be anywhere near the case.