As any basketball fan likely knows already, Bronny James, the son of superstar LeBron James, was drafted by the Lakers with the 55th pick in the 2024 NBA draft. He competed in the NBA’s Summer League, averaging close to 9 points with 3.5 rebounds and 1 assist.
The general consensus toward Bronny’s drafting was overwhelmingly positive, and many people around the league (fans, current and former players, sports reporters and commentators) were quick to head-off the potential criticism that this was an instance of unfair nepotism.
NBA insider Adrian Wojnarowski said he “doesn’t want to hear it,” since the league is ful of nepotism from the front office, coaching and beyond. In a sit down interview with ESPN, LeBron spoke towards his son’s work ethic and how Bronny truly doesn’t care about any of the negative comments that come his way off the court.
I’m part of the louder chorus of basketball fans who think a father and son becoming teammates is one of the most compelling stories in sports history. Without taking anything away from Bronny’s personal accomplishment (he worked hard to come back from the heart issue that hindered part of his freshman year at USC), this speaks most to Lebron’s longevity as an NBA superstar and is another point in his case for G.O.A.T. status. We’ve never seen a player remain in their professional league and play at an elite level long enough for his son to join him.
Focusing on Bronny can come across hypocritical, especially in a league where players are increasingly the sons of former NBA players and towards a profession that involves much more individual merit than, for example, inheriting the family business. Yet although I don’t have criticism towards this instance of nepotism, I don’t think critics’ sense of fairness is totally wrong.
Though it isn’t true (and ironically probably is least true for basketball), sports are often seen as the last real “meritocracy” in society; that you get to be a professional athlete based on your performance. Whether you won five NBA championships, didn’t play sports beyond high school (like myself) or a casual fan, athletes are supposed to be judged by what they do in the competitions they take part in. Every dunk, every touchdown, every home run is linked to an ethos of merit. One can argue that critics aren’t seeing the bigger picture, but reasonable fans or analysts would be saying that Bronny’s college stat line (4.8 points, 2.8 rebounds and 2.1 assists per game) was underwhelming if attached to another name.
But ultimately, rather than engage in discourse about whether or not LeBron’s influence on Bronny’s spot in the NBA is good or bad, conversations like these need to evolve past litigating any individual instance of nepotism. The public discourse on nepotism is typically taken case by case; this job or that seat in a prestigious institution, this part in a movie or that spot in at an Ivy League school. Yet I suspect that the average person thinks nepotism is a little right when they do it, and a little wrong when others do it. In fact, most of us would argue not being nepotistic when you have the resources and opportunity to do so is a parental failure.
It seems like a no-brainer—right up until we apply to a job that we worked hard for but find out the interview was just a formality, and the position was going to the boss’ kid.
That being said, we should expand the conversation to larger questions about nepotism and its intersection of sports, race, class and our society’s ambivalence on when meritocracy is the prime, unconditional value and when it isn’t. Nepotism is rampant at every level of every sport, regardless of the race or other identity markers of the athlete. But it is an interesting topic when it comes to Black athletes, because it taps into historical and contemporary discourse about Black people and merit.
Ironically, in just about every arena of life outside of sports (specifically basketball and American football), Black people too often have to fight the assumption that we are not qualified. This suspicion arises for any job with the minimal amount of prestige, or any position that becomes of the focal point for our never-ending Culture War. We live in a society where, for example, people say that affirmative action is unfair, even “reverse discrimination” but don’t utter a peep about legacy admissions. My life and that of Bronny James couldn’t be more different. Despite one shared identity, he likely already has more money in his account than I will make in a hundred lifetimes. However, I do surmise something that what we have in common is we see society’s malleable sense of fairness–characterized by the grace we give to some and the rules we give to others.
I hope one day we can turn the corner from litigating individual instances of nepotism and come to the honest realization that we all get a helping hand to achieve the goals we have in life, even if where we end up isn’t as privileged as a getting paid millions of dollars to play a game we love.
Whether it is to applaud or criticize, focusing on kinship ties is a way to cope with the sobering fact that our lives aren’t pure meritocracies. It’s easier to scoff at Bronny than to admit that though we like to uphold merit as this prized measure, hard work is much more legible to us when it is the product of those we already think “deserve it.” It reveals more about us than it does about them. And even more discomfiting, our sense of unfairness is activated by factors (like race, class, etc.) that aren’t always comfortable for us to interrogate.
That being said, Bronny is going to have to grow as a player and show that he deserves to be in the league. To say his last name didn’t help him isn’t true, but his last name won’t put the ball in the basket.
This post originally appeared on Medium and is edited and republished with author's permission. Read more of Joshua Adams' work on Medium. And if you dig his words, buy the man a coffee.
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