Lakers forward LeBron James, left, and his son, guard Bronny James, warm up before a game against Minnesota on Oct. 22 in Los Angeles. Eric Thayer/Associated Press

If your dad is Tom Hanks, you get to act in movies. If your dad was Robert F. Kennedy, you get to run for president. But sports is not like that. Sports is the last true meritocracy.

Nobody puts you in the Yankees’ lineup just because your last name is Mantle. You don’t get to quarterback in the NFL because you grew up an Elway. They aren’t called the Denver Broncos and Sons.

But all that somehow doesn’t seem to apply to the LeBron James family. The superstar power forward for the Los Angeles Lakers has been dreaming for a long time about a day when he could play on the same court as his son Bronny. The problem is Bronny isn’t good enough to play in the NBA. He was barely good enough to play at USC, where he toiled one season and averaged 4.8 points a game as a backup guard.

But the Lakers’ management would do a swan dive into an empty pool for LeBron – especially knowing his contract was up – so they drafted Bronny with the 55th pick, gave him an $8-million, four-year deal and tried him out in the preseason.

He was just awful. He averaged 4.2 points per game, shot less than 25 percent and heaved up a dozen 3-point attempts, making only one. You do that in preseason, you immediately get cut or shipped down to the G League, where you can hone your bricklaying skills in solitude.

Instead, the Lakers slapped him on the roster for the season opener against Minnesota. In the second quarter, father (nearly 40) and son (20) rose from the bench in unison and entered the game, the first father and son to play together in NBA history. Bronny took one shot, missed, got one rebound, no steals, no assists and left after three minutes.

Everybody glowed about “history being made.” TNT’s Kenny Smith gushed that it was an “unbelievable accomplishment by the James family.” It “gave me little chills,” said teammate Anthony Davis. Said LeBron: “I will never forget that moment.”

Oh, pleeeease. This wasn’t history. It was hokum. It was as phony as Cheez Whiz. It was choreographed cringe theater. Bronny is not gifted at this game like his father. The moment was gifted to him by his father. That’s it.

An NBA game Bring Your Child to Work Day. Just because a dad has a crazy dream doesn’t mean it must come true. Usain Bolt has three kids. Do they get to run in the Olympics now?

The Lakers even stuck Ken Griffey Sr. and Jr. in the crowd, the first father/son duo to do it in major league baseball. The difference is that the Griffeys were both All-Stars. The only way Bronny is getting into an All-Star Game is with StubHub.

It gets worse. Bronny is going on the Lakers’ five-game trip starting this week, which will hit Cleveland on Wednesday, 45 minutes from Akron, where father and son were born.

I feel bad for the kid. Bronny didn’t push this, his dad did. This isn’t “special.” This is staged. Bronny isn’t within an O’Hare runway of being ready for it. He needs years of work on his game in the G League and I’m not even sure that will be enough.

He’s barely 6-1, doesn’t have much in the way of a guard’s ballhandling skills and would have trouble creating a shot in an empty gym. He got blocked by Kevin Durant the other night in a moment that was just … embarrassing.

Maybe LeBron can ask the rest of the NBA to stop guarding him so closely?

Can you imagine the pressure on the kid? He’s only 20. Jerry Seinfeld has a 21-year-old son, Julian. Maybe in the middle of Seinfeld’s next stand-up at Carnegie Hall, he should spot him in the audience and go, “Hey, Julian. C’mon up and do five minutes!”

And what about other young Lakers sitting on the bench, dying for their chance to get into the game? They have to sit and watch a kid who shouldn’t even be in the league – a kid they eat for a between-meal snack every day in practice – getting in while they rot.

I’m generally a monster LeBron fan. No NBA athlete has played so fabulously for so long with so few pianos falling on his head – no tabloid stuff about mistresses or 3 a.m. nightclub messes. He built a school. He’s a good, unselfish man.

But this is selfish, self-indulgent schlock. You want to be a good father? Don’t hand your son everything. This is why kids who get a Jag for their 16th birthday never wax it. Let him work hard and try to earn it himself. That way, if and when it happens, he can feel proud, not sheepish.

Look, LeBron, if you want to feel the joy of playing basketball with your son, put a hoop up in the driveway like everybody else.