LeBron James gave his 20-year-old son a pep talk before they got up from the Lakers bench. Amid the cheers, they walked together to the scorer’s table and stepped into basketball history.
LeBron and Bronny became the first father and son to play in the NBA together on Tuesday night during the Los Angeles Lakers’ season opener, fulfilling a dream LeBron had shared a few years ago. He is the top scorer in league history.
“That moment, us being at the scorer’s table together and checking in together, it’s a moment I’m never going to forget,” LeBron said. “No matter how old I get, no matter how my memory may fade as I get older or whatever, I will never forget that moment.”
Father and son checked into the game against Minnesota at the same time with four minutes left in the second quarter, receiving a big cheer from the home crowd that understood how special this moment was.
The 39-year-old LeBron had already played 13 minutes before teaming up with his 20-year-old son for about 2 1/2 minutes on the court.
LeBron is one of the greatest players in NBA history, a four-time champion and 20-time All-Star, while Bronny was a second-round pick by the Lakers last summer. They are the first father and son to play in the top basketball league at the same time and on the same team.
“Y’all ready? You see the intensity, right? Just play carefree, though,” the father told the son on the bench before they checked in, an exchange captured by the TNT cameras and microphones. “Don’t worry about mistakes. Just go out and play hard.”
Their time on the court together was quick and energetic, just as LeBron had promised.
LeBron, who scored 16 points during the game, missed two outside shots before making a dunk. Bronny grabbed an early offensive rebound but missed a tip-in. His first NBA jump shot was a 3-pointer that just barely missed.
He left the game one possession later with 1:19 left in the second quarter, receiving another round of applause. Bronny didn’t play again in the Lakers’ 110-103 win over the Timberwolves.
“(I) tried not to focus on everything that’s going on around me, and tried to focus on going in as a rookie and not trying to mess up,” Bronny said. “But yeah, I totally did feel the energy, and I appreciate Laker Nation for showing the support for me and my dad.”
After the game ended, marking the Lakers’ first opening-night win in LeBron’s seven seasons with the team, father and son walked to the locker room together. They stopped in the tunnel to hug Savannah James, LeBron’s wife and Bronny’s mother.
The whole family was there to witness the historic moment, which also happened to be little sister Zhuri’s 10th birthday.
Ken Griffey Sr. and Ken Griffey Jr. were also courtside at the Lakers’ downtown arena to see the same history they made in Major League Baseball. The two played 51 games together for the Seattle Mariners in 1990 and 1991 as baseball’s first father-son duo.
The Jameses and the Griffeys met during pregame warmups for some pictures and a friendly chat between the two famous families.
LeBron first talked about his dream to play alongside Bronny a few years ago when his oldest son was still in high school. That dream came true after Bronny entered the draft as a teenager following one season in college, and the Lakers selected him with the 55th overall pick.
“I talked about it years and years ago, and for this moment to come, it’s pretty cool,” LeBron said. “I don’t know if it’s going to actually hit the both of us for a little minute, but when we really get to sit back and take it in, it’s pretty crazy.
But in the moment, we still had a job to do when we checked in. We weren’t trying to make it a circus. We weren’t trying to make it about us. We wanted to make it about the team.”
LeBron and Bronny joined a small group of father-son professional athletes who have played together. The Griffeys made history 34 years ago and even hit home runs in the same game on September 14, 1990.
Baseball Hall of Famer Tim Raines and his son also did this with the Baltimore Orioles in 2001.
In hockey, Gordie Howe played alongside his two sons, Mark and Marty, with the WHA’s Houston Aeros and Team Canada before spending one season together in the NHL on the Hartford Whalers in 1979-80, when Gordie was 51.
While the other father-son pairs on this list played together later in the fathers’ careers, LeBron shows no signs of slowing down as he starts his NBA record-tying 22nd season.
LeBron averaged more than 25 points per game last year for his 20th straight season, and he remains the key player on the Lakers alongside Anthony Davis as they try to regain the form that won them a championship in 2020 and led them to the Western Conference finals in 2023.
Bronny survived cardiac arrest and open-heart surgery in the summer of 2023, and he went on to have a shortened freshman season at the University of Southern California. He still declared for the draft, and the Lakers eagerly picked him with the fourth-to-last pick in the draft as the 6-foot-2 guard.
LeBron spent the summer in Europe with the gold medal-winning U.S. team at the Paris Olympics, while Bronny played for the Lakers in the summer league. They began practicing together with the Lakers before training camp.
The two first played together in the preseason, spending four minutes on the court during a game against Phoenix just outside Palm Springs earlier this month.
“It’s been a treat,” LeBron said at Tuesday’s morning shootaround. “In preseason, the practices, just every day … bringing him up to speed on what this professional life is all about, and how to prepare every day as a professional.”
The Lakers were fully aware of the history they would create with this pairing, and coach JJ Redick recently talked with the Jameses about a plan to make it happen early in the regular season.
The presence of the Griffeys likely made it inevitable for opening night, even though Redick said the Lakers still wanted it “to happen naturally, in the flow of the game.”
The Lakers have not said how long Bronny will stay on their NBA roster. Los Angeles already has three other small guards on its roster, and Bronny likely needs regular playing time to improve his game to a consistent NBA level.
These factors suggest that Bronny is likely to join the South Bay Lakers, the G League team, soon. LeBron and Redick have both spoken highly of the South Bay team, mentioning that player development is an important part of the Lakers organization.
Miami forward Kevin Love, who knows all the James children—Bronny, Bryce, and Zhuri—from his time as LeBron’s teammate in Cleveland, said it was “an unbelievable moment” to see father and son playing together.
“I grew up a Mariners fan, so I got to see Griffey and then Griffey Sr. But this is different because LeBron is still a top-five player in the league,” Love said. “This game, man. It’s why we have that ($76 billion) TV deal. The storylines and the things that happen like this, it’s an unbelievable story. This is really cool to see.”
