The Los Angeles Lakers selected Bronny James, son of LeBron James, in the second round of the 2024 NBA Draft with the 55th overall pick. The duo will be the first father and son to appear in the league at the same time.

James was one of the notable players who went undrafted in the first round Wednesday night, but many suspected that Los Angeles would take the USC product in the second round Thursday. Last summer, James suffered cardiac arrest as a result of a heart defect, delaying his college debut. He appeared for the Trojans in December and scored 4.8 points per game over the course of the season.

Because of his limited college experience, many have accused the 19-year-old Akron native of benefitting from nepotism. But in ESPN’s draft coverage, analyst and reporter Adrian Wojnarowski emphatically dismissed such claims.

“I don’t want to hear the charges, people talking about nepotism. The NBA is full of nepotism. The ownership level, front offices, coaching. I don’t want to hear about it all of a sudden because Bronny James’ father plays for the Lakers. It is rampant in this league.”

As a prospect, James’ limitations are obvious. He’s incredibly green, isn’t tall by NBA standards and didn’t show much in his time on a weak USC team. As a bartering chip for the Lakers to coax his father, currently in free agency, into re-signing with the team, however, James appears to be extremely valuable.

Because of the teenaged prospect’s importance in other negotiations, James is in a uniquely strange position. While it was arguably easier for him to get drafted into the NBA, it may be significantly harder for him to be respected as his own player.

While most prospects get several years to discover an identity before they enter the league, James will be thrust into very deep waters and learn on the fly. A brief consolation — there will likely be a pretty strong hand in his corner.

A recent report suggests that the Los Angeles Clippers are temporarily halting trade negotiations for James Harden in order to focus on the beginning of the regular season. Harden has been in a prolonged and bitter battle with the Philadelphia 76ers, refusing to play for the team despite still being under contract.

ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski delivered the update from the Clippers’ side of the negotiating table, noting that Los Angeles has been trying to acquire Harden for some time now and has not heard anything solid in return from Philadelphia. Wojnarowski also said that the Clippers could return to talks later in the season and are apparently one of the only teams that have shown interest in Harden.

“At least for the foreseeable future, the Clippers are stepping back from these trade talks about James Harden,” Wojnarowski said on an ESPN broadcast Wednesday. “They’re essentially pausing them. They have talked with Philadelphia for months about a trade. They’ve made their best offer for Harden and they are now going to start their season and see what this team looks like with a healthy Kawhi Leonard, a healthy Paul George. Now the Clippers may revisit this at some point, but they know they’re the only bidder for James Harden. They’re the only team that’s made a serious offer. They don’t want to bid against themselves, and again, while they may revisit this later in the season, I think the Sixers have to wonder have we already gotten the best offer we’re gonna get for James Harden?”

Harden, a 14-season veteran and the 2018 MVP, went to Philadelphia in 2022 through a trade with the Brooklyn Nets, where the guard was also reportedly unhappy because of mediocre results. In his time with Philadelphia thus far, the team has made the postseason twice but has not managed to defeat the Boston Celtics, losing to them both times in the conference finals and semifinals, respectively.

In the offseason, Harden began to express profound discontent with Philadelphia’s management, calling President of Basketball Operations Daryl Morey a “liar” and requesting to be traded. The team has not yet fulfilled that request, causing Harden to skip training camp. In response, Philadelphia cut him off from all team activities, effectively icing him out ahead of the start of the season. The team is playing without him for now, and for every game he misses, he may have to pay incremental fines that will gradually rise to $1 million per absence. Harden reportedly tried to rejoin the team for a road trip but was not allowed on the plane.

With Harden refusing to play for the 76ers and the team reportedly refusing to let him return, a trade seems like the only course of action to rectify this situation. But with the Clippers, who already have Leonard and George, pausing negotiations, it appears that Harden could remain isolated for the foreseeable future.

James Harden and the Philadelphia 76ers have agreed to a two-year, $68.6 million deal, finally settling weeks of negotiations. The news was first reported by Adrian Wojnarowski via Twitter on Wednesday night. Harden reportedly has a player option for the second year that would allow him to enter free agency following the 2022-23 season.

Following a year in which the All-Star guard was traded to the 76ers from the Brooklyn Nets, Harden declined his $47 million option last month in order to give his new team more space to acquire other players. This new deal seems to benefit both the team and the player. This offseason, the 76ers have signed three free agents and two undrafted rookies, and also traded for shooting guard De’Anthony Melton. Meanwhile, Harden has accepted a temporary pay cut but also retains the right to enter free agency after the season.

In the 2022 NBA Playoffs, the 76ers were eliminated in six games by the Miami Heat in the Eastern Conference Semifinals. Star center Joel Embiid’s initial absence due to an injury in the previous round and lackluster performances from Harden were considered the primary causes for the team’s early exit. In an interview with Yahoo! Sports, Harden said that he accepted less money so that his team could be more competitive.

“This is how bad I want to win. I want to compete for a championship,” Harden said. “That’s all that matters to me at this stage. I’m willing to take less to put us in position to accomplish that.”

Harden’s latest contract negotiations are sure to encourage the 76ers organization and fanbase alike, but it’s doubtful that it will sway skeptics. Harden’s postseason viability has been a topic of discussion for years, and the guard has gained a reputation as an underachiever.

Despite playing for championship-contending teams for nearly a decade, Harden has only appeared in the NBA Finals once, when the Miami Heat defeated the Oklahoma City Thunder in five games in 2012. After being traded to the Houston Rockets, he had multiple MVP-caliber seasons but could never lift the team past the Golden State Warriors in the Western Conference Finals. A disastrous turn of events in Brooklyn, in which the big three of Harden, Kyrie Irving and Kevin Durant accomplished very little in two seasons together, is just the most recent item in a growing resume of Harden’s shortcomings.

Just as they did last season, Harden and his new team appear to be contenders going into the 2022-23 season, and surrounding him and Embiid with strong supporting characters appears to be a formula for success. But for a talented player with a notorious lack of historical team success, agents and contract negotiations will never tell the story as well as events to come on the court.

On Monday, ESPN host Rachel Nichols apologized for comments made in leaked audio about her colleague Maria Taylor.

The leaked audio was first reported by the New York Times on Sunday. The leaked comments were made by Nichols in July of 2020 after ESPN told her that Taylor, who is Black, would be hosting the NBA Finals instead of her. Nichols was talking to Adam Mendelsohn, an adviser to LeBron James, seeking advice, unaware that her video camera was on and was recording her.

“I wish Maria Taylor all the success in the world — she covers football, she covers basketball,” Nichols said in one clip. “If you need to give her more things to do because you are feeling pressure about your crappy longtime record on diversity — which, by the way, I know personally from the female side of it — like, go for it. Just find it somewhere else. You are not going to find it from me or taking my thing away.”

“I just want them to go somewhere else — it’s in my contract, by the way; this job is in my contract in writing,” Nichols added.

The contents were recorded to a video server at ESPN headquarters, where any number of employees could have accessed it. One person recorded a copy of the call on a cellphone and the audio was soon spread throughout the company. The only person disciplined over the incident was a digital video producer who told ESPN’s human resources department she shared the video with Taylor. The producer, a Black woman, was suspended two weeks without pay and has since left the company.

Nichols explained to the Times she was “unloading to a friend about ESPN’s process, not about Maria.” She said she reached out to Taylor via texts and phone calls, but never received a response.

After the comments were leaked, Taylor declined to host NBA Countdown during the finals. She eventually changed her mind, but only on the condition that Nichols does not appear on the show. ESPN agreed but ignored her condition by airing prerecorded segments with Nichols that appeared to be happening live.

As a result, the segments of other sideline reporters then became a mix of live and prerecorded clips. ESPN later threatened to prerecord every reporters’ segment on NBA Countdown if Taylor continued to “refuse to interact” with Nichols. This led to a blowup on a preshow call between the show’s commentators: Taylor, Jalen Rose, Adrian Wojnarowski, Jay Williams and ESPN executives.

Soon after, ESPN began allowing all sideline reporters to air their segments live on NBA Countdown.

Taylor’s contract expires in just a few weeks, right in the middle of the NBA Finals.

On Monday, Nichols made a public apology to Taylor for the comments she made. “So the first thing they teach you in journalism school is don’t be the story. And I don’t plan to break that rule today or distract from a fantastic Finals,” Nichols said to open The Jump on ESPN 2. “But I also don’t want to let this moment pass without saying how much I respect, how much I value our colleagues here at ESPN. How deeply, deeply sorry I am for disappointing those I hurt, particularly Maria Taylor, and how grateful I am to be part of this outstanding team.”

Former NBA players Richard Jefferson and Kendrick Perkins, Nichols’ co-stars on The Jump, expressed support for Nichols.