The 2024-25 NBA season is here. We take our annual journey too close to the sun and challenge you to endure the heat of these views. These are hot takes that we might actually believe.

When Los Angeles Lakers teammates LeBron and Bronny James became the first father-son duo in NBA history, ESPN posted side-by-side photos on social media from 2004 and 2024.

The headline read: “Time flies.”

Newsflash: That is not the case. And that's exactly what makes this achievement so remarkable.

Facebook was a young company when Bronny was born in October 2004. YouTube didn't exist yet. The iPhone wouldn't be invented for another three years. Instagram debuted in 2010. That was forever before.

But every moment between them now is another opportunity to remind us that LeBron and Bronny are teammates. Did you hear about the time LeBron forced the baseline on his son? Or the time Bronny made a 3-pointer over his father? Surely you did, because both became headlines the moment we found out about them.

If you're already tired of keeping up with the Jameses, imagine how the Lakers feel. Don't get me wrong: It will be extremely cool to see LeBron and Bronny share a spot for the first time in the regular season. It will be funny to see a father helping his son first. This novelty is fleeting – for us, not for them.

But the Lakers are asked in every city about every development between father and son, good or bad. And it becomes a burden, if it isn't already. The feel-good story won't feel so good when asked about, say, Bronny's move in and out of the G League as losses mount under first-year head coach JJ Redick. Or when LeBron has to rest a sore left ankle. Or when D'Angelo Russell sits on the bench.

That's right: The Lakers are a sideshow. They have no chance of winning a championship, and yet they will be the biggest story in sports – even bigger than last season, when they lost in the first round of the playoffs.

Remember, LeBron turns 40 in December. He gets to play with his son because by the end of the season he will likely have played more minutes in the NBA than anyone ever has. He's still really good, a third-team All-NBA selection last season. His stats – 26-7-8 on 54/41/75 shooting splits – remain remarkable. But slow as it may be, the recent decline it has experienced is unmistakable.

The Lakers' 17th-ranked defense last season reflected LeBron's inability or unwillingness to consistently do his best in that area. The 71 games he played in the 2023-24 season were the exception to a rule that sidelined him for twice as many games per season compared to the previous four years. His advanced stats in this four-year window are easily his worst since his rookie season, when he won 35 games at Bronny's age.

It's no coincidence that the Lakers have appeared in the play-in tournament in three of the last four years. In 2022, they failed to fully reach the postseason. Last season ended with an exit in the first round of the playoffs after five games.

And how did the Lakers respond to last season's deficits? Not through a single trade or free agent signing, but through the addition of a first-time head coach, the No. 17 pick in the draft and LeBron's son.

Oh, and they gave James a two-year, $104 million extension that will take him through his 41st birthday.

FYI: Here are the records of every first-year head coach with no prior coaching experience:

• Steve Nash (48-24), lost in the second round

• Derek Fisher (17-65) did not make the playoffs

• Steve Kerr (67-15), NBA champion

• Jason Kidd (44-38), lost in the second round

• Mark Jackson (23-43) did not make the playoffs

• Vinny Del Negro (41-41), lost in the first round

• Isiah Thomas (41-41), lost in the first round

• Doc Rivers (41-41) did not make the playoffs

• Larry Bird (58-24), lost in the conference finals

• ML Carr (33-49) did not make the playoffs

• Quinn Buckner (13-69) did not make the playoffs

• Magic Johnson (5-11) did not make the playoffs

• Dan Issel (36-46) did not make the playoffs

• Dick Van Arsdale (14-12) did not make the playoffs

• Paul Silas (36-46) did not make the playoffs

The team has often deteriorated under the new head coach.

Maybe Redick is an exception. Russell told reporters that he texted Redick from the golf course thanking him for designing a game he had never seen before, which is an odd sentence. His admiration for the new coach causes him to play harder on defense than ever before.

On the other hand, Russell is in his 10th NBA season. He is who he is. And Redick is not God, as far as I know.

Redick responded defensively when asked how Rui Hachimura could “take the next step,” as if the sixth-year pro didn’t need to improve. In Redick's eyes, Hachimura just needs to be in a better position to succeed, and perhaps he's right. Or maybe it's madness to think there are quick fixes to these Lakers' problems.

Even if Redick represents an improvement at the coaching position – and that could well be the case – the fact that this team has won a single playoff is nothing to celebrate Game last season in the best and healthiest seasons LeBron and Anthony Davis have enjoyed since winning the title together in 2020.

The 76 games Davis played in last season were a career high. What is the probability that someone who missed an average of 28 games per season from 2018 to 2023 can avoid missing that time again? The Lakers got the best seasons they could have asked for from their two best players and still couldn't avoid an early exit.

When the going gets tough, and it gets tough – it always does over the course of an 82-game season – what do the rest of the Lakers think of a team that has traded every available asset for LeBron's preferred playing partner, his podcast colleague asked? -host installed as head coach and drafted his son in the second round?

LeBron is the culture of the Lakers and will soon be 40 years old. But he has Bronny, which means the climax of their season will come on opening night, before Los Angeles takes its sideshow on tour.