Photo Credit: Lapresse
At the NBA Draft Combine, a campus that is taking place in Chicago with the most promising young players who aspire to appear in the next Draft to be held on June 27, one of the players who is being closely followed is not exactly someone expected to be in the Top 10, nor in the Top 20, nor even in the Top 40. It is a young man who until recently did not even appear in the forecasts, but the one who is focusing the attention of the dozens of scouts present: Bronny James.
LeBron James' son intends to apply for the next NBA Draft, and because of his last name and his famous father, is focusing so much attention of all analysts. King James has already made it clear many times in public that he would like to share a locker room with his son before retiring and considering that he will be 40 years old next December, the future of his son could be linked to his... if any team decides to select him, which does not seem easy according to the reports that scouts are leaking.
His diminutive stature (1.87m), his main handicap
Bronny is a 19-year-old point guard and 1.87 m, a player of a diminutive stature for what is expected in the NBA, and that is his main handicap. He tries to make up for it with a great defensive attitude, but that doesn't seem to be enough for a player who is not a great scorer either. According to experts he could only play in the NBA as a secondary player. And there are also doubts about his physical condition after suffering a cardiac arrest 10 months ago while training with his university, USC - South California.
Veteran scouts who are following his progress at the Draft Combine in Chicago are not very optimistic about his chances of playing in the NBA. Quite the opposite. ESPN NBA analyst Marc Spears shared what some of them think of Bronny after his first few practices and games on campus. And some of their opinions are devastating.
"He did some good things, but I still don't think he's ready for the NBA," noted one of the scouts, who gave his views anonymously as they are prohibited from speaking publicly about these hopefuls. "He's on the shorter side, so he'll have to be elite on defense. You can see he has good vision, makes the right passes and takes good shots. But he will need more time. If the Lakers don't select him, I don't see anyone picking him in the Draft."
Highly critical of his skills
Spears leaked another report from a scout who was much more critical of his game saying his defensive ability didn't make up for his short stature as players bigger than him, almost all of them, continually looked for him to score in front of him. "No, he's not good enough. Maybe if he went back to college for another year or two. But right now he's not an NBA player. He's not even close to being one."
In the two training games he has played in Chicago he has not shined. He had four points and four rebounds in the first, and in the second he improved somewhat with 10 points and four rebounds, showing flashes of solid defense on the on-ball attacker. But even that improvement did not convince the scouts, who were very harsh in their evaluations of the son of the legend.
And the criticism didn't stop there: "He can only play to the left," they pointed out as another of his great deficiencies. "His great strength is supposed to be defense, but he loses it as soon as there is a change of mark. All the bigger players look for him to score more easily in front of him".
