Bronny James and the Los Angeles Lakers kicked off their 2025 Las Vegas Summer season League marketing campaign with a defeat.
It was a much-anticipated conflict, due to the presence of No. 1 general choose within the 2025 NBA Draft, Cooper Flagg.
Whereas it was a detailed sport, Flagg and the Dallas Mavericks registered an 87-85 win over the Los Angeles Lakers.
After the sport, Lakers’ Bronny James was requested about his sincere ideas on competing with Flagg for the primary time in his profession.
Being the highest choose within the draft, followers clearly count on Flagg to at some point grow to be a famous person within the NBA.
Nevertheless, that’s a long-term purpose as Flagg is but to translate his NCAA expertise to the NBA. For starters, Flagg had an underwhelming debut within the 2025 NBA Summer season League.
He was defended by none aside from James Jr. for almost all of the sport. Bronny spoke concerning the matchup within the postgame interview with ESPN’s Dave McMenamin.
“I’m attempting to save lots of myself as a defensive man. I’m not going to be a scoring man proper now. I’m going to attempt to maintain my floor up, he’s [Cooper Flagg] acquired like half-a-foot on me,” James Jr. mentioned.
He added: “He’s nice, man. I watched him in school. Superb participant. He’s going to be one thing particular.”
| Stats | Bronny James | Cooper Flagg |
| Factors | 8 | 10 |
| Rebounds | 2 | 6 |
| Assists | 2 | 4 |
Much like Bronny, Flagg’s Mavericks teammate, Kyrie Irving, had nothing however reward for the highest choose, albeit having a gradual evening on the ground.
Whereas Bronny and Irving praised Flagg, the previous Duke star knew he wasn’t his standard self in opposition to the Lakers.
Because of this, Flagg disagreed with Irving’s reward and dropped a essential evaluation of his efficiency.
“It’s only a totally different sport. A special tempo, a special really feel, totally different spacing. It’s plenty of changes, however we’ll be alright,” Flagg said.
Transitioning from NCAA to the NBA will be difficult, however let’s not bounce to any conclusions proper now. In any case, Flagg has a plethora of video games to search out his rhythm earlier than the beginning of the common season.
