LeBron James has taken the basketball world by storm with his surprising choice to sign with the Philadelphia 76ers for an unexpectedly modest contract, raising several pressing questions across the league.
Foremost among these is whether the 76ers will consider orchestrating a trade to acquire LeBron’s son, Bronny James, who currently plays as a guard for the Lakers.
Speculation abounds about what a potential trade package between the Lakers and the 76ers for Bronny might entail.
According to an earlier report by the California Post, LeBron’s departure from the Lakers does not inherently signal that Bronny will follow his father to Philadelphia.
However, should the 76ers decide to pursue a deal for the talented 21-year-old guard, who is about to embark on his third NBA season, they have a variety of strategic options at their disposal.
A simple one: Bronny being traded for Dalen Terry or Jabari Walker and one of the several second-round picks the 76ers own (three in 2027 including their own, potentially three in 2028, their own in 2029, etc.).
Bronny is making $2.3 million in 2026-27 — less than both Terry ( non-guaranteed $2.6 million salary) and Walker ($2.6 million, $250,000 guaranteed) salary for next season.
After acquiring Bronny, the 76ers would have to waive either Terry or Walker to get far enough under the first apron threshold they’re hard-capped at to sign LeBron.
For the Lakers, they’d be able to acquire a real asset for Bronny (second-round pick) and could waive either Terry or Walker to have 15 players on their roster signed to standard NBA contracts with little to no impact on their cap sheet.
Since the Lakers drafted Bronny out of USC with the No. 55 pick in the 2024 NBA Draft, making him and LeBron the first father-son duo in league history, the Lakers have developed the 6-foot-2 guard into a reliable shooter with defensive upside.
Bronny spent significant portions of his rookie and sophomore seasons with the Lakers’ G League affiliate, the South Bay Lakers who have been rebranded as the Coachella Valley Lakers.
He improved significantly during his second season, upping his field goal percentage (50.5% from 41.9%), 3-point percentage (37.6% from 33.6%) and assist-to-turnover ratio (4:2.6 from 4.6:3.3).
Bronny played 42 regular season games for the Lakers in 2025-26, and was a full-time rotation player after Luka Doncic and Austin Reaves suffered their regular season-ending injuries.
He averaged 5.6 points and shot 35.7% on 3s in the final 10 games of the regular season.
Bronny also played in eight of the Lakers’ 10 playoff games, with the highlight being the 10 straight points he and LeBron scored during the second quarter of the Lakers’ Game 3 win in their first round series victory over the Rockets.
If the Lakers keep Bronny on the roster going into the season, he’s expected to compete with newcomer Collin Sexton, rookie Cameron Carr and recently-acquired Jaden Hardy for reserve backcourt minutes.