What better place to develop than alongside LeBron James as part of the Los Angeles Lakers?
That looks like it’ll be the case for Bronny James as he enters his rookie year in the 2024-25 season, as the Lakers have signed the 55th overall pick to a multi-year guaranteed contract, the Athletic’s Shams Charania reported on Tuesday.
Rather than receiving a two-way or non-fully guaranteed deal, James is poised to be part of the Lakers roster rather than take his talents to South Bay (L.A.’s G League affiliate).
The exact terms of the deal were not reported by Charania.
Agent Rich Paul mentioned in May in an interview with Bleacher Report’s Chris Haynes that James did not intend to sign a two-way deal.
It’s common for second-round picks, particularly ones late in the draft, to receive two-way contracts and get more playing time with the team’s G League side for development purposes.
Second-rounders also aren’t commonly given fully guaranteed deals and have to go through a negotiation process with the team to determine the salary on their rookie contract.
There is a rookie wage scale for first-round picks that pre-determines how much players can earn over their four-year contracts, depending on how high up they were picked in the draft. However, that doesn’t exist for second-rounders.
In the 2023 draft, only 15 of the players selected in the second round were given non-two-way, guaranteed deals to play with their NBA clubs and only three players after pick 44 were guaranteed. In 2022, only 12 second-rounders were given guaranteed deals.
So far, James is the first and only reported second-rounder to have been handed a guaranteed deal.
In his injury-shortened freshman season at USC, he averaged 4.8 points, 2.8 rebounds and 2.1 assists in 19.3 minutes per game mostly off the bench.