Rich Paul: Bronny James will ‘absolutely not’ sign a two-way NBA contract

NBA

From Bryan Fonseca

Rich Paul, LeBron James' longtime agent, now represents his son Bronny and has given several speeches on behalf of the younger James while he is still in the pre-draft process.

The younger James has declared for the 2024 NBA Draft, but Paul insists he will not sign a two-way contract with a professional team.

“Yeah, that's absolutely true,” he told Bleacher Report's Chris Haynes in a long interview. “The teams know that. I don't do that.”

According to Shams Charania of The AthleticJames has more than 10 training session invitations but is “expected to only” meet with a few teams, including the Lakers, who pick 17th and 55th, and the Suns, who have the No. 22 pick in the draft.

Paul also told Haynes that Bronny – who also suffered a cardiac arrest before his freshman season – was getting a chance for more than just his name.

Paul said the four-star high school recruit, who averaged 4.8 points per game and played less than 20 minutes a night as USC's sixth man, doesn't have to “apologize” for his lineage.

“What do you think is going to happen to Jeff Bezos' children? He built Amazon. Do you think they won't be positioned based on what he built?” Paul said. “And none of them should apologize for that. The only thing you can count on is to be grateful, to treat people a certain way, and to improve something you were positioned to do. They shouldn't apologize for that.”

“And Bronny shouldn't apologize for who his father is.”

Paul also spoke about the people who were against James' success.

“I'm not going to sit here and chastise a father for being happy for his son, because for many years the black father has been portrayed as absent and unsupportive,” he added. “Perhaps with the social media furore there were certain expectations that might have raised awareness that people would rather see you fail than succeed. Bronny captures many variations of his father's success. But that's all part of it.”

Paul said Bronny is not receiving “special treatment” in this process, even though his actual NBA potential has been criticized given his limited college experience. He said it is “very naive logic” to think he is receiving special treatment because of LeBron.