NBA Training Camp: Bronny James’s Rough Preseason Start, Julius Randle’s Timberwolves Fit

Plus, notes on Greg Oden’s next career move, Lakers rookie Dalton Knecht, defensive woes in Phoenix and whether Kawhi Leonard will be healthy this season.

Los Angeles Lakers guard Bronny James looks to pass against the Minnesota Timberwolves during a preseason game. / Jonathan Hui-Imagn Images

News, notes and observations from an interesting first week of NBA training camp … 

• Tough start to the preseason for Bronny James, who missed six of his seven shots in the Los Angeles Lakers’ first two games, finishing a combined minus-28 in 29 minutes. James has some sharp defensive instincts—he had three blocks in the opener against the Minnesota Timberwolves—but finding his niche offensively is going to be challenging. He’s not (yet) a playmaker, he’s not (yet) a fluid three-point shooter and doesn’t possess the kind of overwhelming athleticism that can be a difference maker. 

James, who just turned 20, is the most scrutinized second-round draft pick ever. The reality is James needs to spend the bulk of this season in the G League getting reps—we can’t forget that James is little over a year removed from a near tragic cardiac event and spent most of his lone season at USC working his way back into playing condition—and figuring out how to be a point guard. The Lakers get that, and as cool as it was to see two Jameses share the floor Sunday, expect to see Bronny suiting up for South Bay for most of this season. 

• Speaking of the Lakers, count me among the Knecht Heads after watching rookie Dalton Knecht’s two preseason games. I love the fluidity to Knecht’s game, even after he followed up a brilliant 7-for-13, 16-point game with a 3-for-9, seven-point clunker two nights later. He’s fearless, can score off the dribble and at 23 is physically ready for an immediate role. Can he defend? That’s what the Lakers are trying to figure out. 
• Where is the defense going to come from in Phoenix? That was my takeaway after watching the Suns’ opener against L.A. on Sunday. Phoenix has firepower and the Tyus Jones signing will help a team that finished in the bottom third of the NBA in turnovers last season. But the Suns are super small with Jones in the starting lineup and don’t have the kind of defensive anchors new coach Mike Budenholzer had in Milwaukee to clean up mistakes. Grayson Allen, who Phoenix needs to be a three-and-D player off the bench, looked heavy and a step slow against the Lakers. I can easily see the Suns as an elite offensive team. I can just as easily see them in the bottom third of the NBA defensively. 
• It’s good to see Greg Oden, the ex-Ohio State Buckeyes center whose NBA career was derailed due to injuries, thriving in his post-playing days. Oden, who was inducted into the Ohio Sports Hall of Fame last Friday, poured himself into education when his playing days ended, earning a master’s degree last summer from Ohio State. After experimenting with coaching for a few years at Butler—where Oden worked for ex-Buckeye coach Thad Matta—Oden told me during an interview on Sports Illustrated’s Open Floor podcast that he is done with coaching, with the next phase of his life focused on public speaking and teaching other athletes about financial literacy. 

“You got to know who you are first because our identity for so long is just the game of basketball,” Oden says. “Honestly, it was very scary. One of the big things that I had to do was actually figure out myself. I was a part of basketball since the third grade and never really knew my own identity outside of basketball. And so the first thing I had to do was ask myself, ‘What do you even enjoy outside of this game?’ I went back to school, just tried to finish my degree. It’s something I promised my mom I would do. I’m thankful to Coach Matta [to] get me back around the game and given me a space where I felt comfortable to go back to school and finish my degree.”

• My instant reaction to the New York Knicks-Timberwolves trade: The Knicks won. A couple of weeks later … I’m not so sure. Donte DiVincenzo is exactly what Minnesota needs, a versatile, three-point shooting big to boost a relatively anemic three-point shooting attack. Meanwhile, Naz Reid, last season’s Sixth Man of the Year, looks ready for a bigger role. 

The question is Julius Randle. Reid and Rudy Gobert have strong chemistry and Reid’s three-point shooting makes it easy for him to plug-and-play into the slot vacated by Karl-Anthony Towns. Randle? His grind-it-out, paint-heavy style seems like a curious fit alongside Gobert, and he isn’t the kind of pick-and-roll partner Anthony Edwards has grown used to. 

“There will be a pretty good learning curve,” Timberwolves coach Chris Finch says. “I’m pretty confident that there’s going to be rough edges that we’re going to have to smooth out. We’re working hard in the moments that we have had them, which haven’t been much so far, like develop fast chemistry between Anthony and Julius. That’s going to be really important. But they seem to be enjoying working together right now.”

While Minnesota loses something with Towns’s departure, Finch believes there are new things they can do with Randle in the rotation. 

“To have skilled bigs is such a weapon,” Finch says. “I think the game is really trended that way, so we’re fortunate to have as many skilled bigs as we did. You can put the ball in his hands and run pick-and-roll with him like we did with KAT. You can post him like we did with KAT. Obviously, KAT’s shooting is better than Julius’s, but Julius has shown the ability to make threes at a high level. I think Julius is better in transition as a rebound, dribble [and] push guy can really create, give us another playmaker there, which at times we desperately need. Until we get consistent backup point guard presence, we can rely on Julius, like we relied on Kyle Anderson.”

• It is amazing anyone is taking seriously the idea that the Los Angeles Clippers are optimistic about Kawhi Leonard’s chances of having a healthy season. To recap: Leonard’s 2023–24 season ended early in L.A.’s first-round series against the Dallas Mavericks … because of a knee injury. He was sent home from USA basketball in July … because of a knee injury. And now he’s not fully participating in training camp … because of a knee injury. Yet Leonard, as team president Lawrence Frank said last month, is “trending in a really, really good direction.”

Come on. Look, Leonard’s issues with his left knee are brutal. At the midway point of last season he was on a short list of MVP candidates. But the knee has been a problem for years, and five-plus months after it cut short another season, it is still giving him issues. Any significant absence by Leonard means the Clippers will have to lean on 35-year-old James Harden and the smorgasbord of talent they stitched together after Paul George’s exit. L.A. won 51 games last season. This year feels like one where they will be lucky to finish in the back half of the play-in tournament.