Why the LeBron duo tugs at the heartstrings of the weekend warrior

Maybe the shoe is on the other foot, and you're spending your cold weekend mornings on the sideline watching your kids play the sport you once did.

Playing sport in the same team as your parent or your child is something that touches the heart of weekend warriors everywhere, because those local fields - where the turf is cut up and you're dodging mud pits - is the only arena most of us will be able to experience that.

LeBron James and his 19-year-old son Bronny are about to do it in front of the world.

Dubbed "King James", LeBron has won four NBA titles, stands as the league's all-time leading scorer and is constantly in the debate to be crowned the sport's greatest of all time.

But those achievements could all pale in comparison to the feeling he gets during the Los Angeles Lakers' opening game of the next season.

Because LeBron is poised to play with his eldest son after rising star Bronny was drafted by the Lakers with pick 55 in the NBA Draft on Friday. Some difference from touch football or social cricket competitions played on dewy Canberra fields.

Bronny enters the NBA shouldering a weight of expectation and pressure few athletes could relate to. Father-son or mother-daughter combinations are a rarity in sport at any level - and more often than not those duos consist of a coach and a player, not teammates.

Ivan and Nathan Cleary have steered the Penrith Panthers to three consecutive NRL premierships, staking claims to be known as two of the best in their craft the game has seen.

No matter how many stars they seem to lose, they're well placed for a raid on a fourth title. Win that with the Cleary coach-halfback combination at the helm, and the Panthers could use "five-year plan" for what might just be the greatest marketing campaign of all time.

The Clearys brought down another father-son combination in Brad and Jake Arthur, who once watched the Penrith duo embrace after tasting premiership success and thought it could have been us, during the 2022 NRL grand final.

With Nick Cotric bound for France, you even start to wonder how long it might be until Canberra Raiders coach Ricky Stuart could select his son Jed, who is shining on the wing in NSW Cup.

The spotlight is naturally drawn to those family connections. But a father and son as teammates? It's almost unheard of at any level.

Which is why you might need to keep your eyes peeled on Queanbeyan's club rugby team lists next year, because your columnist is getting pretty close to convincing the old man to play just one game of fourth grade next year for a 30th birthday present.

He'll be double my age but that won't matter. He's probably going to double my tackle count.

These are the kind of tales that will be passed around at family dinners for years, which is why so many will eagerly await the arrival of the James duo in the NBA.

Plenty will want to cut Bronny down. Society works that way. But among the rubble will be the romantics, sharing photos of the duo on social media with teary eyes and a beaming heart.

Because for the weekend warriors, these are the moments you dream of, and the moments you won't forget.

You might be the one who can still remember playing a fourth-grade cricket game with dad after spending countless Saturday afternoons in your childhood watching from the boundary. There would be times you're called up to field before that someone finally says it's time to give the young fella a bowl.

Then there's the moment the other team needs one run off the last ball to win the game, and your old man is bowling. The batter smashes it to the 13-year-old at cover, who takes it clean as a whistle on the bounce before throwing it to the wicketkeeper for a match-winning run out.

Colleague Chris Dutton reckons the bottle of coke from the shop down the road never tasted sweeter than it did that day.

Australia was so close to getting LeBron James to the NBL - LeBron James Junior, that is.

"Bronny" James, as he's known more commonly, is the 19-year-old eldest son of the NBA's all-time scoring leader and four-time champion.

After much speculation about his NBA future, on day two of the draft James Jr was selected in the second round by the Los Angeles Lakers, the team his father has played for since 2018.

Bronny James was taken with the No.55 overall pick - the fourth-last pick.

"Beyond blessed," the teen wrote in an Instagram post.

Adding further intrigue to the move, LeBron James Jr can become a free agent next week, which means he could choose to leave the Lakers and sign elsewhere.

In the lead-up to the selection by the Lakers there were reports that the youngster's high-profile agent Rich Paul was calling other NBA teams threatening that if they drafted the rookie, James Jr would play in Australia.

If true, the controversial ploy to allow the Lakers to draft James Jr late seemed to work. Now they make history as the first father-son duo in the NBA at the same time, and the first on the same team.

Day two of the draft also saw highly-touted Australian, Johnny Furphy, finally drafted.

Thought to be a lock as a first round pick, Furphy's name was not called until the second round, taken at pick No.35 by San Antonio, before the Spurs then traded the pick to the Indiana Pacers.

Furphy is a Basketball Australia Centre of Excellence graduate and played for the Canberra-based COE in 2022 and 2023 in the NBL1 competition, and will now go from playing basketball in Belconnen to the bright lights of the NBA with the Pacers.

"This is a quality pick for the Pacers. We had Johnny Furphy projected to go 18th in our mock draft, for them to get him here is a steal," ESPN NBA expert Jonathan Givony said.

Beginning his journey to the NBA in Canberra by training at the COE and alongside NBA Global Academy stars, after finishing high school in the capital Furphy rocketed up mock draft boards this past year.

Early last year Furphy had just one US college scholarship offer on the table, but a standout performance at the NBA Academy Games saw his value skyrocket and he eventually joined the Kansas JayHawks.

Before long, the 6-foot-8 freshman forward was declaring for the NBA draft this year, much earlier than anyone first anticipated.

"Grateful," the Melbourne product said on Instagram after being drafted.

The NBA went to a two-day format this year instead of having its draft drag too late into the night.

Ten players and their families attended, sitting in a room off the studio set, though the two players who were left in the green room at the end of the first round - Duke's Kyle Filipowski and Furphy of Kansas University - didn't return for the second round.

Filipowski was selected at No.32 by Utah with the second pick of the second round.

Swede Bobi Klintman, who played last year in Australia's NBL, was the first player in attendance to be selected, with his family cheering loudly after NBA Deputy Commissioner Mark Tatum announced his name at No.37.

The players who did attend treated the event like the glitzy first round, wearing sharp suits and seated at tables - albeit much smaller ones -- that had the same gold basketballs as centrepieces at Barclays Centre.

And perhaps some of them will have better careers than some of the players who were picked Wednesday.

The NBA has sought to spur interest in the second round with an "every pick matters" slogan, highlighting the success of MVP Nikola Jokic and New York guard Jalen Brunson, who finished fifth in this year's voting, along with former Defensive Players of the Year Draymond Green and Marc Gasol.

Both Filipowski and Furphy were viewed as potential picks in the middle of the first round, and their experience at some of college basketball's traditional powers could have them ready to make quick impacts as rookies.

The Detroit Pistons also agreed in principle to acquire the draft rights to Bobi Klintman after the Minnesota Timberwolves selected him at No.37. Klintman played at Wake Forest in 2022-23 but spent the 2023-24 season with the NBL's "Next Stars" program.

The Milwaukee Bucks drafted AJ Johnson at No.23. Johnson is from California but played most recently for the Illawarra Hawks in the NBL

Bucks general manager Jon Horst said Johnson was an athletic 6-5 combo guard with a 6-8 wingspan, but he didn't play much in Australia and may need time to develop into an NBA rotation player.

Zaccharie Risacher was No.1 in this year's draft and moved to the Atlanta Hawks, while Perth Wildcats star Alex Sarr was the second pick and ended at the Washington Wizards.

- with AAP