When asked about the Lakers’ handling of Bronny during an appearance on The Bettor Angle show, Barkley didn’t hold back.<\/p>\n
The NBA Hall of Famer has criticized Los Angeles’s unusual plan to have the rookie split time between home G-League games and the NBA roster, suggesting it’s hampering his development.<\/p>\n
“Awful,” he said in response to the Lakers’ plan.<\/p>\n
“I thought it was great, a little ceremony his first game. But the kid is not ready to play in the NBA… This thing where he’s only gonna play home games.<\/p>\n
It’s stupid, it’s not fair to him,” Barkley continued. “It’s not fair to the team. Can you imagine the coach of that team?<\/p>\n
You come off a road trip and you have a player you haven’t seen in a week or two. And then you probably feel like you gotta play him.”<\/p>\n
Bronny’s statistics support Barkley’s concerns. The McDonald’s All-American averaged modest numbers at Sierra Canyon High School (13.8 points, 5.5 rebounds, 2.7 assists) before a limited college career at USC (4.8 points, 2.1 assists, 2.8 rebounds).<\/p>\n
Now as a pro, he’s posting just 0.7 points per game on 16.7% shooting in the NBA while managing 5.0 points and 3.0 assists in 28.5 minutes across two G-League appearances.<\/p>\n
The criticism reflects a growing concern that the Lakers’ attempt to accommodate both James family members might be coming at the cost of Bronny’s long-term growth.<\/p>\n
Leave it to Barkley to say what we’re all thinking.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
When asked about the Lakers’ handling of Bronny during an appearance on The Bettor Angle show, Barkley didn’t hold back. The NBA Hall of Famer has criticized… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":11117,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11114","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nba"],"yoast_head":"\n