ESPN Wants You Not to Criticize the Bronny Lakers Situation
ESPN would prefer you shut up about LeBron and nepotism
Succession can be tricky, in politics or otherwise. Speaking of which, Subscriber Dylan wants me to weigh on the Lakers drafting LeBron James’ son Bronny:
Dylan:
Yo Ethan! Longtime subscriber, big fan of your work. This Bronny-Lakers story touches on two storylines that I’ve never really seen converge until now, and I’d love to hear your thoughts on it in either a pod or written piece.
The first is the traditional NBA nepo environment, where the sons and nephews and grandsons of former players and coaches often get handpicked for coaching/front office positions. It’s happened for decades and there are no shortage of examples we could pull from. The second is a new kind of nepotism(?) taking shape in the NBA, and I haven’t seen a ton of discussion about it.
It *feels* like the league has more sons of former players than ever before. And it’s not entirely the result of strong genes. It’s because these players are hooking their sons up with personal trainers as early as 10-11, and pumping tens of thousands of dollars into their development over the next decade. Regular hoopers with no real connections are essentially getting priced out of competing at that level. Which, funny enough, is an argument we’ve heard for why black participation in baseball has plummeted to almost zero. Suburban white kids can afford the expensive equipment and AAU travel that many black kids can’t. The difference is in the NBA most of the kids getting a leg up in terms of resources and access happen to be black.
Bronny is in the middle of the Venn diagram here. He’s had access to the maybe the greatest hoops mind ever since he was a child, and he’s had God knows how much money pumped into his development. But that still wasn’t quite enough, and the more traditional brand of nepotism (hey can you hire my kid?) came and saved the day.
I’d love to hear your thoughts on how the old and new nepotism kinda brought us to this moment, and if you can see the league essentially embracing its brand as a nepotism league and justifying it as some sort of social justice campaign (without explicitly calling it that).
Sorry for the rambles. You the man!!
Yes, Dylan, there are a lot of angles here. This whole NBA nepotism topic is confounded by how, as Tom Haberstroh has pointed out, bloodline has an extremely positive correlation with NBA success. “Nepotism” has a negative connotation because it can be anti meritocratic, but sometimes nepotism works. The New York Times was saved by the nepotism hire of A.G. Sulzberger, but I digress.
Obviously there’s a big genetic factor in the NBA productivity of those related to NBA players, but it’s probably not just that. As noted at HoS, NBA players have legitimate insights about the sort of preparation needed to make it at that level. For example, Gilbert Arenas has explained how an extremely boring, repetitive kind of workout is essential to building NBA skill. He puts his son (and top prospect) Alijah Arenas through such training. Not only is it likely the correct preparation, but Gilbert has the credibility to sell a commitment to it. That’s an extremely powerful combination. There are all these competing ideas on how to get better, but imagine if your dad offered a plan you could absolutely fully buy into?
But you know how your NBA father can offer you an even more direct path to the NBA? I think you know where I’m going with this.