Playing with LeBron doesn't seem to matter much to Bronny James

The NBA Playoffs have provided tremendous theater for basketball fans this past week. The defending champion Nuggets have come back from the dead after falling behind 2-0 to the Timberwolves. The precocious Thunder grew up before our eyes in coming back to even their series against the Mavericks with a stellar fourth quarter in Game 4. Then there's whatever is happening in the Knicks-Pacers series, which has been the basketball equivalent of the movie 300, with Jalen Brunson leading his depleted team to within a win of the conference finals.

LeBron is in the news for a host of reasons at the moment. Top of mind is the Lakers' coaching search in the wake of Darvin Ham's firing, with LeBron's friend and podcast partner JJ Redick reportedly taking the early lead in the race to become the next Lakers coach. Not far behind is everything involving LeBron's son Bronny, who declared for the NBA Draft after one forgettable season at USC and is now participating at the NBA Draft Combine.

Let's try to separate Bronny from LeBron because that's what the younger James is trying to do at the moment. While it's true that his stats in college give no indication that he's ready for the jump to the NBA, that's true of a lot of guys who end up getting their name called by Adam Silver. NBA teams draft for potential and Bronny has shown at the combine that he has the athleticism and the shooting touch to potentially grow into an actual NBA-caliber player, even if the fact that he measured in at only 6-foot-1 after being listed at 6-foot-4 is concerning.

Just like any prospect, Bronny deserves to be judged on his own merits, but his dad has made that difficult

For years, LeBron has talked about his desire to play on the same NBA team as his son. This was even going on while Bronny was still in high school, with no idea of whether he could blossom physically or skill-wise into an NBA player. Forget the logistics of what it would take from an NBA front office to make that happen (would you draft Bronny over a player you were higher on just to appease LeBron?), and forget the way that this would affect team dynamics (LeBron is already famously fickle when it comes to teammates that he sees as underperforming; how would the addition of Bronny affect already-tenuous team chemistry?).

To Bronny's credit, he's tried to separate himself from his dad, and he came out yesterday to say that he hasn't thought much about playing on the same team as LeBron.

There are undoubtedly a great many advantages to being the son of LeBron James, but Bronny has also had to deal with much more scrutiny than he would have if he had a less-famous dad, not to mention the derision of an internet populace that would rather spend its time denigrating him as a nepo-baby and a failure just because he's not a superstar.

As a prospect, Bronny is a complicated evaluation. He suffered a cardiac arrest months before his freshman season was set to begin, and after missing the first half of the season in recovery, he went on to score just 4.8 points and play under 20 minutes per game for a team that went 15-18 and finished ninth in the Pac-12. At the Draft Combine, though, Bronny has looked the part of someone who should be drafted. He went 19-25, second only to UConn's Alex Karaban, in the 3-point shooting drill, and his 40.5" vertical jump was better than all but a few participants.

The media whirlwind will always surround Bronny because of who his dad is, but he's handled himself like a pro through it all. It's way too early to tell what his possible NBA future might hold, but he seems like a good dude with a good head on his shoulders. Let's all hope that wherever his basketball journey takes him, he's given the chance to chart his own course. I'll be rooting for him.