Bronny James earned JJ Redick's trust. The Los Angeles Lakers guard secured a spot in the nine-man playoff rotation for the team in their first-round matchup against the Houston Rockets. However, it has all come in a "blink and you'll miss him" type of capacity.
James has now played two playoff games with the Lakers this season. His team has won both of them, with the Lakers going up 2-0 in the series against the Rockets. There have been minimal contributions from Bronny in getting them toward that enviable serious count.
Granted, the last man in a nine-man rotation should never really be expected to be commanding a lion's share of minutes. However, in both his appearances, James has mostly been an afterthought, more so that one would expect of anyone leaving the bench at all during the playoffs.
In Game 1, Bronny played about four minutes in the second quarter before being gone from action for the rest of the night. In Game 2, it was the same type of brief second-quarter appearance, with it being closer to three minutes this time. At that point, one would be forgiven for wondering why James is out there in the first place.
Bronny James is failing to do much of anything in limited Lakers minutes
Thus far, in the 3.5 minutes that Bronny has played on average during the first two games, the Lakers guard does not have any notable impact to speak of. In all fairness to him, it is difficult to leave any fingerprints on a game during that short of a run.
This is not meant as any sort of indictment on JJ Redick's approach to the Rockets series. The Lakers head coach has done a masterful job leading his team, and exploiting the clear advantages that Los Angeles still has over Houston, even whilst missing Luka Doncic and Austin Reaves.
Even so, one cannot help but wonder why shrinking the rotation to eight players would not be in the cards. Effectively, that is more or less how the Lakers are operating anyway.
It could really just come down to a matter of keeping guys fresh, in the argument supporting the current strategy. Having Bronny out there for short stints during the second quarter could be allowing Redick to give just a little bit of extra rest to whoever he feels may need it before the second half.
The series with the Rockets has been ugly and largely taxing in a physical manner. In both Game 1 and 2, Redick did lean pretty heavily on his main guys in the second half of those ball games.
For example, LeBron James and Rui Hachimura both played north of 20 minutes in Game 1. The following matchup featured LeBron, Rui, and Luke Kennard in 21-plus minutes of action during the second half as well.
Typically, guys playing the miniscule minutes that Bronny has through the first two games are just dropped altogether. If (or when) push comes to shove, that will likely be the approach too. For now, James can be expected continue his role of offering a brief spell in second quarters.
Add us as a preferred source on Google