LOS ANGELES (AP) — LeBron James gave his 20-year-old son a pep talk before they got up from the Lakers’ bench. With increasing cheers, they walked together to the scorer’s table – and then directly entered the history of basketball.

LeBron and Bronny became the first father and son to play together in the NBA on Tuesday night Los Angeles Lakers ‘ season opener, fulfilling a dream that LeBron, the best scorer in league history, had set for himself a few years ago.

“That moment when we sat together at the scorer’s table and checked in together, that’s a moment I’ll never forget,” said LeBron. “No matter how old I get, no matter how much my memory fades as I get older or whatever, I will never forget this moment.”

Four minutes before the end of the second quarter, father and son started the game against Minnesota at the same time, drawing a huge ovation from the home crowd, aware of the enormity of this milestone. LeBron, 39, had already started the game and played 13 minutes before joining his 20-year-old son for about 2 1/2 minutes.

LeBron James is one of the greatest players in NBA history, a four-time champion and 20-time All-Star, while LeBron James Jr. was selected in the second round by the Lakers last summer. They are the first father and son playing in the top basketball league in the world at the same time, let alone on the same team.

“Are you ready? You see the intensity, right? But just play it lighthearted,” father said to his son on the bench before they checked in, a conversation captured by the TNT cameras and microphones. “Don’t worry about mistakes. Just go out there and play hard.”

Their time together on the court was fast and furious, just as LeBron promised.

LeBron, who finished the night with 16 points, missed two perimeter shots before completing a dunk. Bronny had an early offensive rebound and missed a tip-in, and his first NBA jump shot moments later was a 3-pointer that fell just wide. One possession later, with 1:19 left in the second quarter, he checked out and received another ovation.

Bronny stopped playing The Lakers’ 110-103 win about the Timberwolves.

“(I) tried not to focus on everything that was going on around me and tried to focus on coming in as a freshman and not trying to screw everything up,” Bronny said. “But yeah, I really felt the energy and I appreciate Laker Nation for supporting me and my dad.”

After the final whistle for the Lakers’ first opening win in LeBron’s seven seasons with the team, father and son also walked into the locker room together – but not before stopping in the tunnel to hug Savannah James, LeBron’s wife and Bronny’s mother. The whole family was there to watch the story on little sister Zhuri’s 10th birthday.

Ken Griffey Sr. and Ken Griffey Jr. were also courtside at the Lakers’ downtown arena to witness the same history they made in Major League Baseball. The two sluggers became the first father-son duo in baseball to play 51 games together for the Seattle Mariners in 1990 and 1991.

The Jameses and the Griffeys met during the audition Warm up for some photos and a heartfelt conversation between two remarkable family lines.

LeBron first spoke about his dream of playing alongside Bronny several years ago when his eldest son was still in high school. The dream came true when Bronny was drafted after one college season as a teenager and the Lakers took him with the 55th overall pick.

“I talked about this many years ago, and for the moment to come, it’s pretty cool,” LeBron said. “I don’t know if it’ll actually affect either of us for a quick minute, but when we can really sit back and take it in, it’s pretty crazy. … But when we checked in, we still had one task to complete. We didn’t want to turn it into a circus. We didn’t want it to be about ourselves. We wanted it to be about the team.”

LeBron and Bronny joined a small club of father-son professional athletes who played together. The Griffeys made history 34 years ago and even hit a home run in the same game on September 14, 1990.

Baseball Hall of Famer Tim Raines and his son of the same name also achieved this feat with the Baltimore Orioles in 2001.

In ice hockey, Gordie Howe played with his two sons, Mark and Marty, for the Houston Aeros and Team Canada of the WHA before completing one NHL season with the Hartford Whalers in 1979-80, when Gordie was 51 years old.

While the other family pairings on this list occurred late in the fathers’ careers, LeBron shows no signs of slowing down or regressing as he begins his record 22nd NBA season.

LeBron averaged more than 25 points per game last year for his 20th straight season and remains, along with Anthony Davis, the most important player for the Lakers as they look to recapture the form that won them a championship in 2020 and took them to the Finals Western Conference brought in 2023.

Bronny survived the cardiac arrest and open-heart surgery in the summer of 2023, and he then played a shortened freshman season at the University of Southern California. He still declared for the draft and the Lakers eagerly used the fourth-to-last pick in the draft at the 6-foot-2 guard.

LeBron spent the summer in Europe with the US team that won the gold medal at the Paris Olympics, while Bronny played for the Lakers in the summer league. They began training together with the Lakers before training camp.

First the duo played together in the preseasonlogging four minutes during a game against Phoenix just outside Palm Springs earlier this month.

“It was a pleasure,” LeBron said at Tuesday morning’s shootout. “In preseason, it’s the practices, just every day… that get him up to speed on what this professional life is about and how to prepare every day as a professional.”

The Lakers were fully aware of the history they would make with this pairing, and coach JJ Redick recently spoke with the Jameses about a plan to make it happen early in the regular season.

The Griffeys’ presence probably made it inevitable for opening night, although Redick said the Lakers still wanted it to “happen naturally in the flow of the game.”

The Lakers have declined to speculate on how long Bronny will remain on their NBA roster. Los Angeles already has three other small guards on the roster and Bronny likely needs regular playing time to bring his game up to a consistent NBA standard.

These factors indicate that Bronny will likely join the G League affiliate South Bay Lakers soon. LeBron and Redick have both spoken positively about the South Bay team and stated that player development is an important part of the Lakers organization.

Miami forward Kevin Love, who knew all of the James children – Bronny, Bryce and Zhuri – from his time as LeBron’s teammate in Cleveland, said it was “an incredible moment” to see father and son play together.

“I grew up a Mariners fan, so I watched Griffey and then Griffey Sr. But that’s different because LeBron is still one of the top five players in the league,” Love said. “This game, man. That’s why we have this ($76 billion) TV deal. The storylines and the things that happen, it’s an incredible story. That’s really cool to see.”

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AP Basketball Writer Tim Reynolds in Miami contributed.

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