Bronny James will be on the same team as his dad, LeBron. All the better it’s the Lakers, the team I grew up with. Super happy for them. I know what that’s like, at least a little.

Father and son playing together on the same NBA team at the same time has never happened before. In journalism, if not common it’s far from unheard of, especially in families that own the franchise.

My son as a teen worked on my copy desk, and he was good. But it wasn’t the same as making the team. He was a high schooler helping out.

Then off to college to study other things, earning degrees in history, anthropology. I wanted him to land a spot on my old wildland fire crew, the LP Hotshots, based in Santa Barbara. My foreman during my time was the supe then. My son could have the same young adult growth opportunity I did. The kid ran cross country for his college, as good and painful a precursor for endless hours cutting fireline as I know.

But he broke his wrist at the end of his senior year punching a football player in front of the Irish pub in downtown Durango, Colorado. No, not a brawl. “Punch me,” the football player said as they discussed the relative upper body strength of a wire-whip distance runner and the merits of runners lifting. He did and shook hands afterward as the football player nodded, impressed. The kid didn’t let on, but he had just broken his wrist. Why was I so proud of him?

Then he got married. Then he landed a sales job at the Carson City, Nevada, paper in my company. Then he blew the doors off there, and again at his next stop at our paper serving the Breckenridge area. Then he led papers in Grand Junction and Truckee.

The company had a rule against dads hiring their sons, much as his mother objected. I’m the type who’d fire his own mother if she weren’t up to the job. There was a time or two the kid would have been an upgrade over what we had, though, such was his talent.

This was the opposite of Bronny on LeBron’s coat strings — more like Ken Griffey Jr. and his dad in baseball. The son was the star, the father the journeyman.

Colleagues would eye me quizzically. How could this be your son? All his mom, I’d reply.

Bronny has the work ethic, the smarts, the composure, even a hint of his dad’s athleticism. Besides the freakish talent, he lacks size — 6-2 to LeBron’s 6-8 frame. But I’m glad the Lakers took a chance on him at pick No. 55.

I think he’ll be a solid player, if never a star. A glue guy who can score when open or otherwise make the right pass every time, play solid defense, do all the fundamentals well. Like a Lyle Anderson or Derrick White, guys who always seem to make the smartest play.

As fans, we identify our sports and our teams with our private lives, no question. I played in high school, the only one on my team under 6 feet. I was skinny, quick, mean and loved the game a lot more than the game loved me back. A 6-2 uncle played Division 1 ball back in the day. I told him I hated him. He laughed.

I played noon ball and rec league, sometimes with college players and former college players, until just a couple of years ago, when my three-times surgically repaired knees finally pooped out for good. I went from young and quickest on the court to let’s say … persistent. From one-on-five glory during open gym to making the right pass at the right time, box out, set screens.

Just like Bronny will have to do right from the beginning if he hopes to stick with the Lakers or have a career in the NBA.

As such, I can identify and cheer for him like I never could for his superstar dad, greatest the league has ever seen. Michael Jordan doesn’t come close, not really. No three, a little thin. He also had better teammates and coaches than LeBron has had. The stats and LeBron’s sheer number of years dominating the game back me up here.

Long live the King, but I’m way more intrigued with the son. My own is not LeBron by comparison, but he’s farther up the chain in his current newspaper company than I ever reached.

Still, I can kick his butt in basketball, just like that other father and son.   

Don Rogers is the editor and publisher of The Park Record. He can be reached at drogers@parkrecord.com or (970) 376-0745.