I have a question, breh. I really like you as a poster. You’re my mans, but where are you getting this idea that it’s because Bronny doesn’t work hard or it’s because his temperament that he’s not dominating? What about — I don’t know — a lack of god/universe given ability? Basketball talent is amorphous. It doesn’t work like, “so and so is his father so he’s going to be good as hell.” If you look at someone like Emoni Bates and comparison to Bronny — the chasm in natural ability is cavernous. There’s not enough drills, shooting sessions, coaching sessions, film sessions, etc. in the galaxy to make up that difference. That’s an extreme example; but you get the gist. I think it’s wholly unfair to frame things as if you don’t make the NBA and Lebron is your dad it’s because you didn’t want it or didn’t work hard. Having NBA level talent is different. It’s innate. Yeah, you refine or sharpen skills over time, but you can’t 2 ball drill and figure 8 your way into being an NBA player. I know this from experience.
Also, the way a lot fans think about basketball ability is weird. They think about it on some NBA2k VC shyt. “Well, imma just max dribbling out. Lemme put like 5 points on that, and then imma max shooting out and add some shooting badges.” It doesn’t work like that. Everyone has a hard cap on how good they can be in some particular area. There’s a ceiling. The difficulty is trying to discern if that ability is maxed out for a prospect or if they still have room to grow. Again, basketball ability is amorphous. It’s not something like tennis where you can look and say look at that speed on the serve, look at the slice on the forehand, look at that serve and volley game, look at that return game, and so on.
I’ll give another example: there’s been wayyyyyyy more guys that come into the league that can’t shoot, and leave the league and still can’t shoot than guys that develop into dead eye shooters. However, the thinking is if you dedicate yourself to shooting you’ll automatically improve. Yet, what if someone is already as good a shooter as they’ll ever be regardless of what they do because of the hard cap on ability? There’s no real way to determine this which is why I say basketball talent is amorphous. Last example: Terrance Williams that played at Louisville. I remember when he was drafted Jay Bilas was like the mechanics of his shot look fine. He’s going to be a better shooter as a pro with unlimited time to work on shooting. He was right about one thing: his jumper did look fine. When he was done in the league after a few years he still couldn’t shoot. He was as good a shooter as he was ever going to be at 18. He was at his talent cap already. Nothing wrong mechanically with his shot, but just a lack of innate ability stopped him from becoming a top tier shooter.
I say all that to say you’re making it some personal reason Bronny isn’t elite when the real issue is that the universe didn’t see fit to give him elite basketball ability. He’s not going to train his way into being good as hell. LeBron knows that too.
