LeBron James has a right to feel any type of way about the attention his son, Bronny, receives. The young man doesn’t even go by LeBron Jr. anymore because the surname attached to his life and Southern Cal basketball jersey is enough pressure by itself.
Big LeBron is proud of the way that his son approaches basketball. While Bronny is nowhere near the size of his father, he takes the game seriously. Bronny sees the floor well, hustles, plays defense, and can leap. However, for all of Bronny’s talents, the ESPN Mock NBA Draft now considers the Southern Cal freshman a 2025 talent. His father took to social media once that information became public.
The legitimate NBA Central Xwitter aggregate account posted on Monday that Bronny is no longer listed in the ESPN 2024 NBA Mock Draft. His father quoted that post and expressed that college basketball players should be able to play without social media speculating on their projection.
Within hours, James deleted his Xwitter post that had requested people to let Bronny be. Social media reminded Daddy James of a night in 2023 when he expressed a belief his son was better than some of the NBA players in action.
To come back less than a year later and ask for the public to be calm about Bronny’s current status is not realistic, especially while the 39-year-old father is still playing like one of the best players in the NBA. Any words from James about his son will be far more thoroughly analyzed than any of the young man’s on-court results. Bronny endured a frightening moment while training during the summer. He collapsed during a basketball workout in July 2023, and appears to have recovered. As a result, he has played in only 19 games as a freshman at USC.
Being that LeBron is arguably the pop culture figure of his generation, he knows that any basketball attention his children receive will be magnified. Wanting people to lay off them is a reasonable dad response, but the milk has long been spilled.
Maybe if James had not been so open throughout his career about wanting to play alongside his oldest son in the NBA, he might have been able to reach that goal more quietly. Now that Bronny’s collegiate years have arrived, LeBron’s wishes to be a proud dad are going to get interrupted by the basketball economy.
Bronny appears to have recovered from his summer health scare and is playing basketball for one of the most recognizable athletic programs in college sports. He is also the highest grossing NIL athlete in America. Bronny had a commercial with the Fast and Furious franchise before his first practice at USC. There is no moving quietly for this young man, regardless of what his famous father deletes from social media.
LeBron has been directing his own career for a long time. He has made enough correct decisions, and reached enough milestones, to be considered one of the best athletes in American history. The kid from Akron knows the game on and off of the court well enough to understand what is in store for his son.
Still, even an American sports icon can get carried away with parental pride. LeBron should have left up his Monday post that contradicted one from last season. Just because he is a legend does not preclude him from being an overprotective parent.
