The Los Angeles Lakers won their opening game of the season over the upstart Minnesota Timberwolves by a score of 110-103 on Tuesday night as Lakers forward LeBron James and his son Bronny James made league history at Crypto.com Arena.

Bronny James, the 55th pick in the 2024 NBA Draft, checked into the game with around four minutes left in the first half and cemented his status as part of a legendary, dynamic duo along with his famous father.

 

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The Lakers pair became the first father-son duo in NBA history to grace the court at the same time, a historic moment that some praised and became emotional about while others called it “staged” and “fake” along with other buzz words.

One of those criticizing the action was Michelle Beadle, who has worked for several sports media outlets including ESPN, The Athletic, NBC, and the San Antonio Spurs.

Beadle was not buying the LeBron James and Bronny James lovefest on Tuesday as she took to social media for a recent interview that put the world of professional basketball on notice.

“Russell Westbrook made it to the league on his own and did all that stuff (accomplishments) by himself,” Beadle said in a video that was viewed more than 2.4 million times as of Wednesday night.

“If this isn’t manufactured, then I don’t know what the word manufactured means. But, again, I am not impressed and I thought this was so ridiculous.”

The James family duo and Coach JJ Redick’s Lakers took Wednesday off and will next welcome Kevin Durant, Bradley Beal, Devin Booker and the Phoenix Suns to the Crypto.com Arena on Thursday night at 10 p.m.

The Suns took on the Los Angeles Clippers at owner Steve Ballmer’s new $2 billion Intuit Arena in Tinseltown on Wednesday evening in a close game between the two longtime Western Conference competitors.

LeBron James and Bronny made history by becoming the first father-son duo to play together in an NBA game. But while the Los Angeles Lakers faithful and basketball fans in general celebrated the accomplishment, a handful of personalities did not appreciate it.

One of those was Fan Duel TV’s Michelle Beadle, who did not mince her words while criticizing LeBron, Bronny, and the Lakers for fabricating Tuesday’s historic moment.

“I just want to remind that there was a large and loud contingent of people when Russell Westbrook was chasing the triple-double record when it was stat-padding towards the end. They were like, ‘This is fake history. This is manufactured history,'” she said.

Westbrook was criticized instead of celebrated

Russell Westbrook averaged a triple-double in his final three seasons with the Oklahoma City Thunder, including his 2017 MVP campaign. He did the same during his lone season in Washington. Russ also broke Oscar Robertson’s single-season record with 42 triple-doubles and overtook “The Big O” on the all-time triple-double leaderboard.

Still, towards the end of Westbroo’s historic run, he was criticized as a stat-padder who forced his way to make history. According to Beadle, LeBron and Bronny being on the floor together against the Minnesota Timberwolves had the same feel to it. But the difference is that Westbrook earned his right to do it, and James Jr. didn’t.

“Russell Westbrook made it to the league on his own and did that all by himself,” added Beadle. “If this isn’t manufactured, then I don’t know what the word means. But, again, I am not impressed, and I thought this was so ridiculous.”

Beadle’s beef with LeBron

Michelle’s criticism of James did not come as a surprise. After all, the FDTV host claimed that LeBron got her fired from her “dream job” at ESPN after she made fun of “The Decision,” and the superstar forward sent her a DM about it.

“Of course, I took it personally; it was personal; he wanted me fired, he tried to do that,” Michelle said. “But then I found out after the fact when all of this sort of came out; I would get messages or texts or videos from people being like, that kind of s*** was happening to them too. He was super petty and he would try to have some sort of an effect, whether it would be small or whatever, just an effect.”

LeBron and Bronny checked into Tuesday’s game with 4:00 remaining in the second quarter. Just over two minutes and two field goal misses later, the 20-year-old returned to the bench and didn’t get more playing time.

The ESPN incident aside, Beadle is one of the few who didn’t like how LeBron and Bronny made history together. Others were in awe after the Lakers superstar added another thing to his NBA resume that (probably) will never be replicated.