The USC basketball season came to an end a few weeks ago with a 70-49 loss against Arizona basketball in the Pac-12 Tournament. The Wildcats are the #1 seed in the tournament. The Trojans were playing their best basketball of the season leading up to the game, but they couldn’t get anything going on offense. Now, the season is over, and Bronny James has a decision to make about his future. He recently decided that he is going to test the NBA Draft waters while maintaining his eligibility, and if he does return to college, he will be in the transfer portal.
When the season started, USC basketball was expected to be one of the best teams in the Pac-12. A big reason for the hype was their 2023 recruiting class that included five-star Bronny James and the top player in the class, Isaiah Collier. Both players would end up missing significant time during the season, and the Trojans struggled all year long.
USC ended up finishing the season 15-18 overall and 8-12 in Pac-12 conference play. When Isaiah Collier returned from injury and the Trojans were healthy near the end of the season, they were actually playing well. They beat Arizona by double digits just last weekend. However, they still needed to win the Pac-12 tourney to get into March Madness, and they couldn’t beat the Wildcats twice.
Everyone assumed when the season started that James would play one year at USC and then head to the NBA. However, he did not have the year that people expected. James finished the year averaging 4.8 PPG, 2.8 RPG and 2.1 APG.
That’s the thing. Bronny is a true freshman playing college basketball at an extremely high level. Most true freshman don’t leave the bench during that first season. What we’ve seen this season from Bronny are normal growing pains that happen all the time in college basketball, and we wouldn’t think twice about it happening to most true freshman. Obviously, however, Bronny is a different story.
Everyone knows that LeBron wants to play with Bronny in the NBA before he retires. He has been extremely vocal about that, and because of that, most people expected Bronny to play one season at USC and then depart for the NBA. However, because of that fact that he hasn’t quite lived up to the hype, he has been sliding down draft boards all year long.
It’s going to be interesting to see what kind of attention Bronny James gets when he tests the NBA Draft waters. If he wasn’t LeBron’s son, he likely wouldn’t be getting much attention from the NBA and it would be a no-brainer for him to return to school. However, he is going to get attention because of his dad, and there’s no hurt in seeing what that attention looks like. After all, teams are probably thinking that if they draft Bronny then maybe his dad will maybe want to play for them. It’s a very intriguing situation, and it’s going to be exciting to see what Bronny decides to do.
What NBA teams should be looking at Bronny James
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If drafting Bronny means that there is a chance that LeBron comes and plays for your team, then it’s worth considering. Yes, LeBron is getting older and he isn’t going to be in the league for much longer, but he is still one of the best players in the NBA. He is also one of the greatest players of all time, and having him on your team at all will bring a lot of good things to a franchise. Plus, Bronny still does have a lot of potential. Just because he didn’t put up crazy numbers during his true freshman season doesn’t mean that his basketball career is over. He didn’t look NBA ready, but he can get there.
Bronny James will likely receive a fair amount of attention, and here are a couple teams that could take the risk of drafting him this year.
Detroit Pistons
I mean, why not, right? At this point, what do the Pistons have to lose? Take a chance with the son of arguably the greatest player of all time. Who knows, maybe LeBron ends up coming to Detroit, or who knows, what if in a few years when Bronny develops more, he turns into a great NBA player like his dad.
The Pistons have been one of the worst teams in the NBA for multiple years now. There is truly nothing to lose, it really can’t get much worse.
Los Angeles Lakers
LeBron is already on the Lakers and he clearly really wants to play with his son before he retires. If it comes down to it and the Lakers can draft Bronny and keep LeBron in LA for the rest of his career, it might be worth it. Obviously this isn’t a move to lure LeBron to your team, but to lure LeBron to stay with your team.
Teams making this decision will likely be thinking about how LeBron will be involved with the move, but it could be an easy way to get a steal in the draft. Bronny’s struggles this past season have been blown out of proportion a little bit because of who his dad is. People forget that the kid missed multiple months before the season because of a cardiac arrest incident. He has excelled in his basketball career at every stop and had one subpar season after a major health incident. It seems like it is more likely that he bounces back than him being a bust.
Also, a lot of people didn’t actually watch Bronny play at USC, they just looked at his stats. It obviously wasn’t great, but it also wasn’t as bad as people make it out to be. He didn’t score a lot but he also didn’t shoot a lot, and he actually did a decent job in his role near the end of the season.
Yes, with his talent he was supposed to have a bigger role and be a guy that scores a lot, but missing the end of that offseason probably had a much bigger effect on him and his role with the Trojans than people think.
The point is, Bronny James has been very good in his career, and he is capable of making a bounce back. Getting a super stars talented son as a late second round draft pick could definitely be worth the risk.