The Coachella Valley Lakers began their inaugural season Friday evening at Acrisure Arena with Bronny James in their starting lineup for the NBA G League Tip-Off Tournament game against the Salt Lake City Stars.
James, the oldest son of NBA career scoring leader LeBron James, was assigned to the team by its NBA parent team, the Los Angeles Lakers, Thursday morning.
The 22-year-old James is averaging 0.8 points and 2.5 minutes in five NBA games this season. He has played 74 NBA games over three seasons, including two starts, averaging 2.5 points and 7.7 minutes per game.
He averaged 16 points and 30.4 minutes in 38 NBA G League Tip-Off Tournament and regular-season games over two seasons with the South Bay Lakers.
Players assigned to NBA G League teams by their NBA parent team customarily start to maximize their playing time.
Rookie guard Cameron Carr was also assigned to Coachella Valley by the Lakers Thursday was also in Friday’s starting lineup.
The 6-foot-5-inch Carr was selected by the New York Knicks with the 24th choice in June’s NBA draft, then traded to the Lakers the next day as part of a four-team trade.
Carr is scoreless in four minutes over three games for the Lakers, missing his only shot.
Forward Cole Swider is the other Coachella Valley Laker with NBA experience, playing in 35 games over three seasons for the Lakers, Detroit Pistons, Miami Heat and Toronto Raptors, averaging 3.1 points and 1.2 rebounds in 8.5 minutes.
The game was also the debut of Alex Cerda as an NBA G League coach after spending the previous three seasons as an assistant coach with the South Bay Lakers.
Cerda succeeds Zach Gurthrie who was promoted in July to be an assistant coach with the Lakers,
Salt Lake City, the Utah Jazz’s NBA G League affiliate, started one of its two players with NBA experience — guard Trey Alexander, who averaged 2.4 points in 6.9 minutes in 33 games over two seasons with the New Orleans Pelicans and Denver Nuggets.
The Stars’ other player with NBA is guard Kobe Bufkin, who averaged 4.2 points in 10.2 minutes in 43 games over three seasons with the Lakers and Atlanta Hawks and
Friday’s game marked the start of the 14-game Tip-Off Tournament which will culminate at the NBA G League Winter Showcase. The league’s 31 teams are separated into four regions.
The teams with the best winning percentage in each region, along with the next four teams with the best winning percentages regardless of region, will advance to compete for the championship at the NBA G League Winter Showcase.
Following the Tip-Off Tournament, team records will reset before the 36-game regular season, which will begin Dec. 27.
The Coachella Valley Lakers announced Thursday that Will Iger will be their play-by-play broadcaster and retired Laker forward A.C. Green will be the analyst.
Iger is a son of the retired Walt Disney Co. CEO Bob Iger, who has begun the process of buying the Los Angeles Lakers with Josh Kushner for a record $12 billion. The younger Iger was the play-by-play broadcaster for the Austin Spurs, the San Antonio Spurs’ NBA G League affiliate, last season.
The Lakers announced on April 30 the move of the El Segundo-based South Bay Lakers to the Coachella Valley.
The team began play in the 2006-07 season as the Los Angeles D-Fenders, with their games played as doubleheaders with Lakers games at the then-Staples Center. It shifted its games to the Lakers’ El Segundo practice facility in 2011 and was rebranded as the South Bay Lakers in 2017.
South Bay had the Western Conference’s best record in the 2025-26 season, 26-10, but lost to Stockton in the conference finals.