South Bay Lakers Season Opener & Bronny James’ G League Debut Is Sold Out

It has always been expected that Bronny James would spend a decent amount of time in the G League with the Los Angeles Lakers’ affiliate, the South Bay Lakers. Now with the G League season set to begin, Bronny will be making his debut on Saturday night when South Bay hosts the Salt Lake City Stars.

The Lakers will be balancing Bronny’s time with the G League and the main roster as they do their best to develop him. He won’t be seeing much real game action with the Lakers and has totaled just 13 minutes through the team’s first eight games, but in South Bay he will get the live action game reps he needs.

And he will be doing so in front of a lot of fans as the South Bay Lakers announced their opening contest against Salt Lake City at the UCLA Health Center is sold out and tickets won’t be sold at the door:

Some may question his skills on the basketball court and whether he will ever be a real contributor in the NBA, but James’ popularity and drawing power can not be questioned. The fact is that people want to watch Bronny and this is more proof of that.

But with that amount of eyeballs comes a lot of pressure and people will want to see Bronny produce. It is one thing to struggle against the best the NBA has to offer, but if he is struggling in the G League then those detractors will become even louder.

Regardless, these G League games will play an important role for Bronny in his continued development and his presence also will give a bigger stage to others on the South Bay Lakers such as last year’s first-round pick Jalen Hood-Schifino and two-way players Christian Koloko, Quincy Olivari and Armel Traore.

Bronny James’ rumored G League plan with the Lakers revealed

That G League debut for Bronny James will be Saturday night, but he will be with the Lakers’ main roster on Friday when they host the Philadelphia 76ers. And it was recently revealed that, for the time being, Bronny will be playing only home games for the South Bay Lakers in the G League.

Bronny reportedly won’t be on the road with South Bay as the Lakers also want him to get as much time practicing and traveling with the main roster as well, trying to balance out his time with both rosters as best as possible.

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