The Los Angeles Lakers have needed contributions from their entire roster with Luka Doncic and Austin Reaves out for the first four games of their first round series against the Houston Rockets. Bronny James is one of the end-of-bench players that’s been asked to play a larger than expected role.

He’s played 31 minutes total in the series, but that has picked up significantly in Games 3 and 4, when he played real minutes in both a winning and losing effort. Given what was said about him when the Lakers selected him at No. 55 overall in the 2024 NBA Draft, playing positive postseason minutes is a massive win. Golden State Warriors star Draymond Green is among those to recognize what the second-year guard is doing.

“Shout out to Bronny,” he said on the latest episode of The Draymond Green Show. “So much criticism for him throughout his career. He’s been the 13th or 15th man all year and he’s playing great playoff minutes. He’s playing great playoff basketball. Gotta give him a lot of credit. How dope is it to see a man and his son playing in a playoff series in the NBA? That’s so fire. All the haters, keep hating. I love to see it.”

The peak of his playoff minutes so far came in Game 3, when he and LeBron James combined to score 10 consecutive points, including a father-to-son lob in a big Lakers run.

James is not being asked to lead the Lakers or even play 20 minutes a night. However, he is being asked to play a role. And it’s very rare for players drafted that late to be asked anything of in the playoffs of their second NBA season.

It shows just how far James has come and the work that he has put in to become a legitimate NBA player, despite countless accusations of nepotism and not deserving his place in the league.

JJ Redick discusses where Lakers have missed two stars

Hopefully, the Lakers can survive long enough in the playoffs for both Reaves and Doncic to return to the lineup. While players like James, Luke Kennard and Marcus Smart have stepped up in huge ways, head coach JJ Redick explained exactly why the Lakers miss their two top scorers.

“This is a top 10 defense the entire season,” Redick said of the Rockets. “It’s obviously very challenging without your two leading scorers to generate offense. We’ll take a look at the process again on that end as well and I know our points per shot and our expected points per shot were slightly below our season average. For me, it goes back to our keys of take care of the ball and we’ll look at how we can be better from there.”

“I think that’s the biggest challenge we have, just ball-handling and downhill drivers, not having those guys,” the head coach added.

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