This year has been an exciting one for LA basketball too, with some of the biggest news of the summer being LeBron James teaming up in LA with his son Bronny James on the Lakers, who was drafted 55th in the 2024 NBA Draft, making history as the first father-son duo to share the court in NBA history. Meanwhile, their cross-town rival Clippers opened up their brand new state-of-the-art arena Intuit Dome, which is widely known as the most technologically advanced NBA arena.
In addition to the drafting of Bronny James and former Tennessee star Dalton Knecht, the Lakers fired coach Darvin Ham and hired former NBA player JJ Reddick as their head coach. The Lakers are off to a strong start, going 11-7 to start off the 2024-2025 season led by stars Anthony Davis and LeBron James.
The Clippers, who had low expectations coming into the season with the departure of Paul George, and the questioned availability of Kawhi Leonard who has battled various injuries during his time with the Clippers, have surprisingly started 12-8 led by James Harden who was acquired in a trade last season with the Philadelphia 76ers.
On the LA football side of things, the Chargers made headlines with the signing of former Charger and National Championship-winning head coach Jim Harbaugh, who has revolutionized their culture and led the team to a 7-4 record as of November 27th in his first year as the Los Angeles Chargers coach. On the other hand, the Rams came into the year with higher expectations after a 10-7 season last year, but have gotten off to a slow start, and are 5-6 as of November 27th.
2024 was a thrilling year for LA sports not to mention Juju Watkins, the breakout USC Women’s basketball player who led USC to the elite 8 in her freshman season. We can only hope that 2025 will offer more of the same.
