The Lakers' Bronny James earns Redick's praise in his preseason debut

PALM DESERT, Calif. – It could have happened right after his turnover and during Game 1 of the preseason instead of Game 7 of the NBA Finals, but Bronny James had a chasedown block of his own in his debut with the Los Angeles Lakers on Friday with his father , LeBron James, sat on the bench to witness.

Bronny finished the Lakers' 124-107 loss to the Minnesota Timberwolves with two points on 1-for-6 shooting, opening their six-game exhibition slate, but also led the team with three blocked shots in 16 minutes, adding one added rebound and one assist.

The first block came less than a minute into his first shift early in the second quarter, when the Wolves' Nickeil Alexander-Walker stole Bronny's pass to D'Angelo Russell and raced down the court toward the basket.

The Lakers' No. 55 pick didn't give up on the game, sprinting to catch up with the 6-foot-2 Alexander-Walker and, despite being 6-2, effortlessly jumping high enough to block the attempt from behind.

Lakers coach JJ Redick said Bronny earned the rotation minutes after a strong performance in the first week of training camp.

“As a coaching staff, we talked about Bronny before the game when we were kind of going through our rotation matrix, and he had some really good days in August and September,” Redick said. “He had three really good days this week. We are really happy with his progress.”

While Bronny didn't drop his first basket until the fourth quarter, with only 56.2 seconds left and many fans already streaming out of Acrisure Arena, the Lakers' “home crowd” in Palm Desert still greeted the driving layup with loud cheers.

The rest of his performance on offense – he missed a floater from the back rim, sailed a baseline pull-up completely over the rim, was blocked at the rim, came up short on a long three-pointer and failed on a 20-foot contested jumper – showed , how much work remains to be done, but Redick focused on Bronny's defensive impact, which was already evident.

“He can do some things defensively at his size that are really unique and I think he can develop into a really disruptive defender,” Redick said. “That has been shown. He’s still figuring out who he is on offense. That’s our job as a player development program, just to build him up.”

“But honestly, it’s so easy to train him. He has a great soul. And he just radiates a great energy program.”

LeBron didn't play Friday as Redick gave the 22-year-old veteran a break after competing for USA Basketball at the Paris Olympics.

However, Redick said he expects James to wear the uniform on Sunday when the Lakers play the Phoenix Suns, which could be the first time father and son have worn the uniform together.