Report: Warriors did not draft Bronny to ‘respect the wishes’ of LeBron

The Lakers landing Bronny James in the 2024 NBA Draft felt like a formality, but the super honorable Warriors reportedly stepped aside to make sure the father-son pairing happened.

For months, few things felt more certain than Bronny James going to the Lakers. While nothing could guarantee that he would land in Los Angeles, the power of LeBron James and Klutch Sports made it feel like a certainty he’d be donning in purple and gold.

Right? Well.....

There was only ever one team other than the Lakers to be linked to Bronny and that was the Suns. However, they weren’t the only Pacific Division team interested in him. According to Ramona Shelburne of ESPN in her recent profile on JJ Redick and the Lakers, the Warriors considered selecting Bronny with the No. 52 pick but opted not to...out of respect for LeBron?

The Warriors liked Bronny’s skill set and had him on their draft board, sources said. Selecting him ahead of the Lakers, who held the 55th pick, would’ve been a shrewd move — perhaps even to entice James to sign there as a free agent. But ultimately, sources said, the Warriors opted to respect the wishes James had made clear and the Lakers signaled they would grant.

10/10 leak, honestly. Leaking that you wanted to draft Bronny but couldn’t because you just respect LeBron so, so much is incredible. Without a doubt, this is one of the funniest leaks in recent NBA history.

It makes it 10 times funnier that it’s the Warriors doing this to LeBron James, the man whose defining moment of his NBA career came at the expense of your greatest collapse in franchise history. Imagine telling a Warriors fan in 2016 that in eight years, the Warriors would go out of their way to not make a transaction out of respect for LeBron.

There have been a lot of connections between LeBron and the Warriors in the last year. The biggest came right after the NBA trade deadline when it was revealed, again through Shelburne and then-colleague Adrian Wojnarowski that the Warriors had inquired about LeBron.

LeBron’s agent, Rich Paul, confirmed the report but said LeBron — who claims he found out about the trade interest when the public did — was committed to the Lakers. A handful of months later, he showed that commitment when he tried to help the franchise land a franchise by taking a discount in a move that didn’t work out.

Hilariously, whether LeBron knew of the Warriors “gesture” at the draft or not, the player he was angling most to sign while taking a pay cut was Klay Thompson, who was leaving Golden State.

If you really want to put on a tinfoil hat, there was a report around the trade deadline as well that there were multiple NBA teams that believed LeBron would take less than the max to play with them. Did the Warriors think they could draft Bronny and get LeBron to sign on to play with Steph for less than the max?

Considering how close Steph and LeBron grew during the Olympics and how much they enjoyed teaming up, if the order of operations was a little different in the summer, that actually might not have been a crazy unrealistic idea.

Circling back to the draft and Bronny, it should also be noted that Paul was reportedly telling teams they’d go to the NBL in Australia to play if someone other than the Lakers drafted him. That felt like a bluff waiting to be called, but no one attempted to do so.

At the end of the day, though, none of that happened and, instead, we get to laugh at the super respectful Warriors. It’ll be exponentially funnier if Bronny because a legitimate player now and the Warriors didn’t select him because they wanted to be nice.

You can follow Jacob on Twitter at @JacobRude.