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After missing training camp and the first month of the NBA season due to sciatica, LeBron James made his season debut for the Lakers on Tuesday. In the first game of his historic 23rd season, James recorded 11 points and 12 assists as Los Angeles defeated the Jazz 140-126, a season-high in points for the purple and gold.
Before James returned to NBA action, he was briefly assigned to the G League with the South Bay Lakers last week to practice and get ready to return to play.
As James spoke to reporters following his first Lakers game this season, teammate Austin Reaves joked about his G League stint, saying, “Pretty good G League player over there. … The G raised him,” via Jovan Buha.
Reaves also poked fun at James seeing time in the G League last week because his son Bronny James, who has spent significant time in the G League, got his second career NBA start at the same time that LeBron was with the South Bay Lakers.
“How about Bronny James starting in the NBA and LeBron’s assigned to the G League?” Reaves said over the weekend. “That’s fun, that’s awesome.”
Reaves, who scored 26 points with five rebounds in the win, cracked another joke postgame that James’s 12 assists to one turnover in his return were not as good as Reaves’s four turnovers to one assist.
Fortunately for James, he will have plenty of time to rest from his first game back before the Lakers’ play their next game on Sunday, which will also be against the Jazz.
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