Yes, the Lakers should move Bronny James, and the people to be annoyed with are the front office keeping a 55th pick around for reasons that have nothing to do with basketball.
Sam Quinn raised this debate this week. Two years into his NBA life, Bronny hasn't reached the point where his offense helps a team. That's a real problem, because at his size the only way to survive without scoring is to be a genuine defensive menace, the kind of pest who turns a game sideways with ball pressure. Jamal Shead plays that role in Toronto; Bronny hasn't shown he can be that. If you can't shoot and you can't be that, there isn't a job description left that fits.
Start with what's actually true. Bronny went 55th overall in the 2024 draft, the last tier of the second round, the slot where teams take a swing and expect nothing. He played at USC after a cardiac arrest scare that would have ended a lot of careers before they started, and getting back on a floor at all is its own story. He even picked up rotation minutes in a playoff series. That's a fine outcome for pick No. 55.
The honest counterargument: this is just a late second-rounder playing limited bench minutes, and nobody turns the last pick in the draft into a national argument. Players at this level get waived in training camp every autumn, and only their families notice. Bronny gets a national argument instead of a footnote nobody reads because of the surname. That same surname is why the Lakers can't make the same ruthless call they'd make on anyone else holding that roster spot.
A roster spot kept because the player's name sells merchandise is a spot spent on marketing while pretending it's development. It's not fair to the fifteenth man who didn't get signed, and it's not fair to Bronny either, who gets scrutinized like a lottery bust while being asked to do a job he hasn't earned yet. You grow with real minutes somewhere the stakes are lower and the cameras are elsewhere.
Trading him would help him. Some owner would love to put him in their uniform for every reason the Lakers are using to keep him now, so let them. Or send him somewhere he actually gets to play. Either beats the current arrangement, where a young guard is a mascot in his own career.
The front office knows all of this. They run the numbers on everyone else to the second decimal. The day they start treating this roster spot like any other roster spot is the day they finally do right by the kid sitting in it.
