LeBron James isn’t playing for the Lakers right now, but he’s still making Twitter waves. On Monday, after watching NBA basketball that he found to be quite incompetent, he tweeted the following:
“Man Bronny is definitely better than some of these cats I’ve been watching on pass league today. Lightly funny fool.” He followed that last sentence with four laughing emojis.
Bronny, of course, would be LeBron’s 18-year-old son who isn’t even considered a five-star high school player by most recruiting services, but apparently is already “definitely” more better than several NBA players.
LeBron is taking a page right out of LaVar Ball’s overly hyperbolic parenting playbook with the intention of paving a path to the NBA for his son, who may or may not be a top talent at the NBA level.
Turns out LaVar was somewhat right about his son. Lonzo Ball is a good player, although nothing close to what LaVar inspired. LaMelo Ball is already an All-Star. LaVar’s LiAngelo Ball hype has been confirmed to be – how do you put this delicately? — a bit of it.
For LeBron, Bronny’s promotional journey began when he said he intended — which he still holds – who played on the same NBA team as his son. This, of course, almost guarantees that Bronny will be in an NBA roster spot unless the draft is higher than his talent warrants if only the package to get his father as well.
Then, back in January, LeBron told the Oregonian that Bronny, who is still undecided about which college he will attend or if he will attend college at all, could play for any school he wanted with the following reasoning:
“I think Bronny can go to any college he wants,” LeBron said. “All I have to do is pick up the phone. If Bronny says he wants to go, that’s good enough.”
It begs the question: If Bronny is really good enough to play at any school in the country, why would LeBron need to pick up the phone to speak on his son’s behalf? His game, if this is true, spoke for itself.
And now LeBron is telling us that Bronny, a four-star high school recruit according to 247 Sports, ESPN and Rivals, is not only better, but ridiculously better than several NBA players right now . No due to better. Better. With a valuable margin.
This could be seen as an attack on the skill level of whatever NBA players LeBron happened to watch that night as much as he was an inspiration to his son. I guess it was both. LeBron didn’t accidentally drop his son to make a point about something else. It’s improving, baby. Make no mistake.
And the thing is, it worked that way. Shortly after LeBron tweeted this – and by soon, I mean less than 24 hours later – On3’s recruiting ratings bumped Bronny up from four stars to five stars.
By Tuesday afternoon, Bronny’s On3 recruiting stock had risen to the tune of being the No. 2 combo guard and ninth overall player nationally with a 98 out of 100 rating.
We’ll see if any of the other recruiting services follow suit, and to be fair, Bronny is a good player who could have earned that promotion on his own merits. The timing just seems, shall we say, coincidental. Either way, LaVar has to be proud of LeBron’s efforts.
