11-Year NBA Veteran Passionately Defends Bronny James From Critics

Is Bronny James being unfairly criticized by NBA critics?

Kelley L Cox-USA TODAY Sports

Bronny James is the most polarizing rookie in the NBA today. Regardless of how else anyone else is performing, the story seems to be centered around him for better, or worse. Right now, Bronny is struggling and the narrative has been brutal around him. One former 3x NBA All-Star believes it's unfair.

During an episode of The Gil's Arena show, Gilbert Arenas passionately defended Bronny James from the criticism he's been receiving.

"If you look across the board and look at some of the other rookies, 0/8, someone was 1/12, it's not college," Arenas said. "Your college resume has no input on this. It's a very different sport."

One thing Arenas finds particularly unfair is the expectations of Bronny as a second-round pick. The microscope is on him in a way that no other second-round pick has, even when it comes to reporting Bronny signing a four-year deal. The former Memphis Grizzlies guard believes it's all a narrative.

"The expectations of a second-round pick is ridiculous," Arenas said. "They're using metrics that's not real. This is how you know a narrative, they said the 55th pick never signed a guaranteed contract, why are you narrowing it down to that f**king number? How about just say second-round, how many second-rounders signed four-year guarantees? Three of them last year... There's three people on this year's draft that signed four-year guaranteed deals."

When it comes to the actual expectations of Bronny James, Gilbert Arenas believes that Bronny should be expected to play only 10-17 games this season. He believes nothing about Bronny is screaming preferential treatment, and that he should be treated as such.

"You try to narrow it down to his number so you can make him look bad. No, he's not the highest-paid player in the second round, there's other players," Arenas said. "Because second round, no one knows about them, there's no coverage on them, it's easy to just point them out. He's a second-round pick, what do you expect? I expect him to play maybe 10-17 games this year. He'll probably get into 10-17 games, average half a point to one point, like every other second-round pick."

While it may seem like the criticism that Bronny James has been receiving is unfair, he also likely wouldn't be in the NBA if he wasn't LeBron James' son. Almost any other college player would have spent at least another year in college to develop and become more NBA-ready. No other second-round pick was also having their father hype them up on social media, while also trash-talking other NBA players at the same time. Unfortunately for Bronny, much of the microscope he's going through isn't because of himself, but because of his father.

It's way too early to make an opinion on Bronny James as an NBA player. Every year, people overanalyze the NBA Summer League, and this year is no different.