First-ever Bronny → LeBron slam
In a viral moment the league is replaying, Bronny James assisted his dad — a rare son‑to‑father feed that led to a LeBron slam and trended widely on social. (The son‑to‑father assist clip was shared broadly by the NBA’s account and social posts.) (x.com)
With 51 seconds left in the first quarter on April 9, Bronny James picked off a pass, pushed the ball ahead, and LeBron James finished with a dunk in the Lakers’ 119-103 win over Golden State at Chase Center. The play was credited as the first son-to-father assist in National Basketball Association history. (apnews.com) That clip landed less than two weeks after the same pair logged the league’s first father-to-son assist on March 27, when LeBron found Bronny for a 3-pointer against Brooklyn. In 13 days, they completed both directions of a play no other family had ever reached in a regular-season game. (nba.com) (espn.com) The reason this record exists at all is simple: fathers and sons almost never overlap in the National Basketball Association. The league said in October 2024 that LeBron and Bronny became the first father-son duo to appear in the same National Basketball Association game. (nba.com) LeBron James is 41 years old in his 23rd National Basketball Association season, and Bronny James is 21 after being drafted 55th overall by Los Angeles in 2024. A 20-year age gap is normal in a family and almost impossible on one professional roster. (espn.com) (nba.com) Bronny’s path to this moment was not smooth. Before his one season at the University of Southern California and before the 2024 draft, he suffered cardiac arrest during a summer workout in July 2023 and later returned to play after treatment and clearance. (espn.com) His National Basketball Association minutes have mostly come in short bursts, but that changed late in the 2025-26 season when injuries opened rotation time. The Associated Press reported that Bronny had played meaningful minutes with LeBron in consecutive games against Indiana and Brooklyn in late March, and he was back on the floor with him again against Golden State on April 9. (nba.com) (apnews.com) The Warriors game mattered beyond the family milestone. LeBron finished with 26 points, 11 assists, and eight rebounds, while the Lakers improved to 51-29 and stayed near the top of the Western Conference race. (apnews.com) (espn.com) So the dunk people kept replaying was not just a sentimental clip from warmups or garbage time. It happened in a real late-season game, it came off a steal with the clock running, and it added a second one-of-one line to a box score that already had the first father-to-son assist from March 27. (usatoday.com) (nba.com)
