Why Ken Griffey Sr., Ken Griffey Jr. are attending Lakers' season-opener

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The new NBA season officially tips off on October 22, and the Los Angeles Lakers will play the Minnesota Timberwolves on opening night. Likewise, both teams are eager to pit their new coaches and rosters against each other, as rookie Lakers coach JJ Redick plays his first regular-season game while the Wolves play their first game without Karl-Anthony Towns, after the Knicks trade. Moreover, another story in the game is the attendance of baseball Hall of Famers Ken Griffey Sr. and Ken Griffey Jr., who want to see LeBron James and Bronny James on the floor together.

“We made history in the MLB & now we get to watch history in the NBA,” the baseball father-and-son said about their NBA equivalents, via former Cincinnati Reds GM turned MLB insider Jim Bowden on X, formerly Twitter.

The Lakers’ father and son

Like LeBron and Bronny, Ken Griffey Sr. and Ken Griffey Jr. were the first father and son to take the field in Major League Baseball. In 1987, the Seattle Mariners drafted Griffey Jr. first overall in the draft, and he made his major league debut two years later.

As Griffey Jr. quickly became a star, his father, also a former All-Star, joined the Mariners in 1990. In one of their special moments together, Griffey Sr. saw his son hit his first homer from the dugout that same year. The Griffeys played together from 1990 to 1991, until Sr.’s retirement in 1991.

Meanwhile, the Lakers drafted Bronny James 55th overall in 2024, an open secret since the younger James declared for the draft. His cardiac arrest at USC may have diminished his draft stock a little, but the Lakers were always going to draft him at wherever he ended up.

After all, a team as historic as the Lakers will not miss making history, especially if it involved the league’s all-time leading scorer LeBron James. Both Jameses became the first father and son to play in an NBA game against the Phoenix Suns in the preseason.

However, depending on how the game turns out, Bronny and LeBron might not play together during the Lakers game versus the Timberwolves on opening night.

At this point in his career, the younger James is a raw prospect, though he has shown defensive flashes, and he would likely sit at the end of the bench before the team sends him down to the G League to find his role and get some reps.

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