{"id":78746,"date":"2024-05-25T09:41:11","date_gmt":"2024-05-25T13:41:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/?p=78746"},"modified":"2024-05-25T09:41:11","modified_gmt":"2024-05-25T13:41:11","slug":"2024-nba-draft-bronny-james-range-all-over-the-place","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2024\/05\/25\/2024-nba-draft-bronny-james-range-all-over-the-place\/","title":{"rendered":"Former Top-10 Prospect\u2019s Draft Range Now \u2018All Over\u2019 The Place"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>As former USC wing <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2024\/05\/24\/bronny-james-2024-nba-draft-profile\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_self\">Bronny James<\/a> makes his way through the draft process, the biggest challenge he faces is fortifying his draft position.<\/p>\n<p>As of now, Klutch Sports CEO Rich Paul says that his draft range is \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/bleacherreport.com\/articles\/10122463-rich-paul-unplugged-on-bronny-james-hysteria-lakers-coach-search-and-todays-nba\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">all over (the place)<\/a>,\u201d per Bleacher Report\u2019s Chris Haynes. \u201cSome teams think he goes 20 to 40, some say 30-50, and some teams think he&#8217;ll go undrafted.\u201d<\/p>\n<h2>Bronny James\u2019s Draft Range \u2018All Over\u2019 the Place<\/h2>\n<p>This was not the case a year ago, when ESPN\u2019s Jonathan Givony projected James to be the 10th overall pick in the 2024 NBA Draft. At the time, the draft expert said that James was \u201cdeveloping into arguably the best perimeter defender in his class while making strides with his shooting and playmaking.\u201d<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">Bronny James is now a projected top-10 pick thanks to the significant jump he&#8217;s made at Sierra Canyon, developing into arguably the best perimeter defender in his class while making strides with his shooting and playmaking. Full 2024 mock draft on ESPN: <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/Cw5AcgxiKy\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">https:\/\/t.co\/Cw5AcgxiKy<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/4DNo1TOtDx\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">pic.twitter.com\/4DNo1TOtDx<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Jonathan Givony (@DraftExpress) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/DraftExpress\/status\/1628401930316701698?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">February 22, 2023<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>In <a href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/nba\/insider\/story\/_\/id\/35707557\/2024-nba-mock-draft-why-bronny-james-projected-top-10-pick\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">his insider article<\/a>, Givony added that the Ohio native \u201cfilled out his frame, found another gear with his explosiveness and become an absolute terror off the ball defensively thanks to his outstanding intensity and feel for the game.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Interestingly, those same skills are now being downplayed by scouts. They\u2019re undoubtedly overshadowed by his <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sports-reference.com\/cbb\/players\/bronny-james-1.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">wretched counting stats<\/a>. That said, <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2024\/05\/22\/lebron-james-impassioned-speech-draft-hopeful-bronny-james\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_self\">it\u2019s no strange thing<\/a> for everyone to hone in on his weaknesses.<\/p>\n<p>Yet, considering that even when James was a top-10 prospect, it was known that he \u201cstill has plenty of room to improve his ballhandling and pull-up jumper to become a more prolific and efficient shot creator,\u201d it\u2019s not as if there any new developments.<\/p>\n<h3>The Wrong Position<\/h3>\n<p>At 6-foot-1 and 210 pounds, James needs to home in on the skills that will help him be a successful point guard. With the Trojans, he primarily played off the ball, a decision that\u2019s been questioned in hindsight.<\/p>\n<p>James <em>does<\/em> need to work on his ball-handling ability. Still, it\u2019s not like he has bricks for hands. He\u2019s just not ready to handle the ball pressure a point guard would face full-time. To that point, he should\u2019ve had more opportunities to develop this area of his game at USC.<\/p>\n<p>Because of Boogie Ellis and <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2024\/05\/06\/isaiah-collier-2024-nba-draft-profile\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_self\">Isaiah Collier<\/a>\u2019s commitments, James was always likely to come off the bench. However, it should have been with more minutes at lead guard. Evidence for this notion is that James recorded five or more assists in half of the games he started.<\/p>\n<p>Former USC head coach Andy Enfield, now leading SMU\u2019s men\u2019s basketball team, isn\u2019t the only one who believed James was better as a 3-and-D prospect. Indeed, it was the prevailing opinion in the basketball world. Nonetheless, it doesn\u2019t change the fact that it now appears to have been the wrong position.<\/p>\n<h3>Bronny James\u2019s Ceiling<\/h3>\n<p>Even if he remained an inefficient scorer, a more aggressive James could be a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/s\/smartma01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Marcus Smart<\/a>-like player. Without the attitude perhaps, but everything else. The game-changing defense and roller coaster playmaking. A streaky shooter but cut from a cloth of champions given his heart and hustle.<\/p>\n<p>At his peak, James\u2019s ceiling may very well be that of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/h\/holidjr01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Jrue Holiday<\/a> or <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/w\/whitede01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Derrick White<\/a>. Notably, Holiday and White are two of three players the 19-year-old named when asked who <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2024\/05\/14\/2024-nba-draft-bronny-james-names-3-pros-he-wants-to-be-like\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_self\">he would like to emulate<\/a>. For that, he\u2019ll have to improve his 3-point shooting and confidence in his overall scoring ability.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As former USC wing Bronny James makes his way through the draft process, the biggest challenge he faces is fortifying his draft position. As of now, Klutch Sports CEO Rich Paul says that his draft range is \u201call over (the place),\u201d per Bleacher Report\u2019s Chris Haynes. \u201cSome teams think he goes 20 to 40, some [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5008,"featured_media":78772,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[556,1608,5,62,3],"tags":[4572,1090,239,98,2389],"class_list":["post-78746","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nba-draft","category-basketball","category-celtics","category-nba","category-news","tag-bronny-james","tag-derrick-white","tag-jrue-holiday","tag-nba-draft","tag-rich-paul"],"modified_by":"Quenton S Albertie","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78746","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5008"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=78746"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78746\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/78772"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=78746"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=78746"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=78746"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}