Lakers Reward Bronny James With NBA Milestone in Last Regular Season Game

Los Angeles is giving its reserves some run.
Bronny James celebrates a basket against the Rockets with Trey Jemison
Bronny James celebrates a basket against the Rockets with Trey Jemison / Jonathan Hui-Imagn Images
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The last day of the regular season in the NBA often has a last-day-of-school feel, with teams giving starters' minutes to the back end of the bench.

Enter, then, one very famous starter for the Los Angeles Lakers Sunday. As the Lakers wrapped up a successful regular season with a game against the Portland Trail Blazers, Los Angeles gave guard Bronny James the first start of his NBA career.

James, forward Dalton Knecht, forward Markieff Morris, center Alex Len, and guard Shake Milton took the floor for the Lakers to start the finale.

In his highly scrutinized first professional season, James averaged 5.5 minutes over 26 games. The son of future Hall of Fame forward LeBron James put up 2.2 points, 0.6 rebounds and 0.6 assists per game while scoring 21.9 points per game for the G-League's South Bay Lakers.

Los Angeles entered Sunday with a record of 50-31, its best since its 52-19 championship season in 2020.


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Patrick Andres
PATRICK ANDRES

Patrick Andres is a staff writer on the Breaking and Trending News team at Sports Illustrated. He joined SI in December 2022, having worked for The Blade, Athlon Sports, Fear the Sword and Diamond Digest. Andres has covered everything from zero-attendance Big Ten basketball to a seven-overtime college football game. He is a graduate of Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism with a double major in history .