Bronny James says Lakers vibes have improved over last year ‘from what I’ve heard’

Los Angeles Lakers guard Bronny James was not a member of the 2023-24 iteration of the Purple and Gold, but he allegedly has heard that the Lakers have better vibes now than they did last year.

Players on the Lakers reportedly lost faith in the team’s head coach last season — Darvin Ham — for multiple reasons.

“Internally, though, players had lost faith in Ham — too much experimentation, too many opponents’ runs swelled without triggering Ham to call timeouts, too many questions about his strategy and adjustments,” wrote Dan Woike of the Los Angeles Times.

It’s also of note that Lakers guard D’Angelo Russell recently took some subtle shots at Los Angeles’ former head coach.

Ham spent the last two seasons as the head coach of the Lakers, and in his first year, he arguably overachieved. After all, he coached the Lakers to their first appearance in the Western Conference Finals since 2020 despite the fact that Los Angeles was the No. 7 seed in the Western Conference.

But Ham gave fans of the Lakers less to cheer about in his second and final season leading the team. Interestingly, Los Angeles won more regular-season games in Ham’s second year than it did in his first — 47 wins compared to 43 — but didn’t come close to reaching the Western Conference Finals. L.A. fell to the Denver Nuggets in the opening round of the 2024 NBA Playoffs.

After what was a brief and underwhelming stint in the 2024 postseason, Los Angeles decided it was time to part ways with Ham. The Lakers fired Ham and replaced him with J.J. Redick, someone that the team has been high on since before he was even announced as its newest head coach.

It’s encouraging that the 19-year-old James is speaking highly of the team’s vibes heading into the 2024-25 NBA season, but it remains to be seen if he will play more than scant minutes with the team in his first season in the pros.

James couldn’t find his groove on offense during Los Angeles’ Summer League stint, so it may be better for his development for him to spend much of his rookie campaign with the South Bay Lakers, the organization’s G League affiliate.