LOS ANGELES — The idea materialized for LeBron James three or four years ago, his body still in mint condition despite the mileage, his son a few years away from a future that seemed impossible to create.
Bronny James was just getting his bearings at Sierra Canyon High back then. But he was beginning to turn heads in front of sold-out nationwide crowds, and holding his own in the rotation of a nationally renowned program ripe with NBA prospects. And suddenly, it seemed possible James’ NBA timeline, then in his mid-30s, could intersect with his son’s after Bronny played a year or two of college basketball, James’ longtime friend Romeo Travis recalled.
“I think that was the time he started to realize, like, ‘This could become a reality,’” said Travis, a former member of the St. Vincent-St. Mary “Fab Five” in Akron, Ohio.
James, fellow childhood friend Dru Joyce III emphasized, is a sports historian. And he has long remembered the moment, Joyce III said, when Ken Griffey Sr. and Ken Griffey Jr. trotted out to the outfield together as Seattle Mariners in 1990, the first father-son duo to hit in the same MLB lineup.
“That says something,” said Joyce III, also a former St. Vincent-St. Mary teammate and now the head coach at Duquesne. “That’s always stuck out to him that, ‘Hey, man, this may be an opportunity, and that’d be pretty cool.’”
Over time, that opportunity has transformed from oft-dismissed fantasy – take James’ August 2022 sit-down with Sports Illustrated – into a sheer inevitability, Bronny tied to the Lakers at nearly every step of his pre-draft process after he declared in April. On Thursday afternoon, the young James was officially taken with the 55th pick in the NBA draft, a move that could ensure perhaps the greatest player of all time will take the floor with his son in a feat unlike anything seen before in basketball history.
“For him to be able to even change his whole family’s dynamic – the whole dynamic of his family, the trajectory of the James name for generations to come – is something simply amazing,” Travis said.
It’s a final, shining piece in James’ legacy, a kid from Akron, Ohio, growing up with no father figure who has grown into a model father himself, laying a future for his children in the league he’s forever molded.
In four years at Sierra Canyon, Bronny’s potential was most often debated under a toxic storm of discourse around his status as James’ son. In a trying year at USC, his potential was most often debated under a toxic storm of discourse around basketball nepotism and James’ next contract.
“My dream has always just been to, put my name out, make a name for myself, and of course, get to the NBA,” James told reporters at the NBA combine in May, the longest media session of his young life.
He’s arrived. But his name won’t be his own, shared across a purple-and-gold jersey as the world picks him apart and lauds his senior, because this is how it’s always been for Bronny James.
THE PRESSURE AT USC
In early February, sections of college kids at Cal’s Haas Pavilion swelled to their feet when LeBron James sidled in for USC-Cal, a father caught again somewhere in this delicate balance between beaming pride and deflecting attention. Whispers turned to gasps. Phones rose, and smiles bloomed. They roared, that Wednesday night, for the father.
They jeered his son.
The boos rained down upon Bronny James as he dribbled up the floor in the first half, swelling into a rattle that filled the topmost seats at Haas. They booed if he shot. They booed if he passed. They booed if he simply touched the basketball.
He scored five points and grabbed five rebounds. USC lost. There were a lot of losses last winter, and a few wins, and Bronny was never really the story of any of them, but the rival boos came regardless. They chanted “Da-ddy’s mo-ney!” at him at Cal an hour after they’d cheered for the dad himself, and two weeks later the Bruin faithful at UCLA borrowed that and ran with it before James even touched the floor.
Who’s-your-da-ddy?
For years, those close to Bronny have said he simply wants to pave his own path. There was never a chance for that at USC. He suffered a shocking cardiac arrest last summer, making a miraculous return to basketball within months. Within months, the world had forgotten, moving on to evaluations of his draft stock as a bargaining chip for an NBA team to sign his father. The promise of joining James hung over Bronny’s every move, a Beats commercial from October narrated by mother Savannah making abundantly clear his father’s intentions.
“Tell them you’re not done until you play with your son,” Savannah’s voice echoed.
In mid-March, Bronny slumped in front of a locker in Vegas with the rest of his weary teammates after a season-ending loss to Arizona, the room hushed in resignation. Headphones covered his ears. His head bowed. He finished his lone year of collegiate hoops averaging 4.8 points, 2.8 rebounds and 2.1 assists per game, numbers widely scoffed at because of his name and status.
Teammates loved him, consistently praising his humility. Coaches lauded his work ethic.
“He’s been incredible,” ex-USC assistant Chris Capko said of Bronny earlier in the winter, speaking on the noise that surrounded him. “And I don’t think, you could ask any of us – I don’t want to speak for Coach (Andy Enfield), but none of us would regret taking him again. I think if we could do it all over again, I would still want him in our program, still take him, and that’s a credit to him.”
Still, LeBron James, playing south a couple miles down the 110, wound up as the hottest topic of USC’s season.
A SON’S POTENTIAL
A few days before Bronny announced he was both declaring for the draft and entering the transfer portal, Duquesne announced they were hiring Joyce III as their head coach. Quickly, the young James was tabbed as a potential fit for Duquesne, given his father’s connection.
“I would’ve loved the opportunity to coach him,” Joyce III told the Southern California News Group of Bronny. “He’s a good player. It’s really that simple.”
When asked if contact was made with James in the portal, Joyce III said he wouldn’t “dive into all that.”
Initially, James’ decision to push full speed ahead in the draft was met with widespread skepticism, given his freshman-year results at USC. He shot 37% from the field and 27% from three, and even more concerning than the percentages was James’ sheer passivity at times, frequently passing up open looks or driving lanes to swing the ball. From February 17 to March 7, a five-game span, he took a total of one three-pointer.
James, though, put together a strong performance at the combine in May, showcasing an improved stroke and some off-the-dribble savvy in scrimmages. His IQ and defensive instincts were widely praised in the pre-draft process, and Dallas Mavericks assistant coach Jared Dudley — a family friend of the James’ — praised his ability to stay in front at the point of attack and avoid picks on pick-and-rolls.
“That’s a skill level that you see guys like Davion Mitchell from Sacramento, guys like Jrue Holiday, guys like Marcus Smart, that it’s hard to screen those guys … Bronny could be in that category, with work and time,” Dudley told the Southern California News Group.
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The question that’s followed him for months, of course — for his entire life, really — is whether Bronny would be in this position if not for his father. Some, like Dudley, say yes, pointing to his potential as a prospect. The majority of the world says no, engaged in a cultural debate over the merits of nepotism.
None of it matters, anymore. It’s all out of Bronny’s hands, now. His fate has been sealed, this dream that may or may not be his set in stone, his story impossible to unravel from his father’s.
“Now that we’re here, eventually, it’s going to come to a point where the rubber has to meet the road,” Travis said.
“Where, if you are as good as you say you are, you’re going to have to play.”