Bronny James played a college basketball game on Sunday, and now comes the fascinating part. She is a teenager burdened by her birth certificate. Months have passed since the cardiac arrest. He is, without much exaggeration, the scion of America’s new royal family. And he slipped on his white USC jersey and stepped onto the floor of the Galen Center to a standing ovation in the middle of a December afternoon, revealed and discovered, immediately forced to figure out who he is before the eyes of the world.
It’s okay to look. It’s okay to be interested. Now is really the time for that.
These were the first lines of a deeply and extraordinarily intriguing story, or at least the part that becomes beautiful. Before he existed as a character. The prince glimpsed from the balcony. Now there are 16 minutes and a made shot and a competitive disaster of an overtime loss to Long Beach State, and all of it serves to ratify LeBron Raymone James Jr. in a way that mixtapes, myths and social media posts cannot. He is real and outspoken, bearing the brunt of blood and expectations in public. He has a lot to handle from here.
And he’s anyone’s business, if anyone wants to pay attention.
Which they will do. In apparently absurd numbers.
Lines of fans snaked through the arena and down the street, hours before Sunday’s announcement. Courtside seats on the secondary market for about the price of a used car. However, it was all speculation. Prospecting. Sticking a piece of bread in the river and hoping something shiny comes out of it. Everyone had an idea about Bronny James, but there probably wasn’t much to go on that was substantial and real.
The situation changed around 1:19 pm local time on December 10, 2023.
“Look who’s coming to the scorer’s table,” play-by-play announcer Jacob Tobey intoned to anyone who could find the Pac-12 net this weekend. Dad got up, took out his phone and started recording. It was an undeniably triumphant human moment; the boy who collapsed during practice in late July, who had a congenital heart defect no one knew about and who stared at a life without basketball, attended his first college game. Worth the ticket price – well, maybe some ticket prices – alone.
It’s also certainly true that people packed the gym and tuned into the broadcast not to see Bronny James return but to arrive.
An unreasonable request and a reminder that there will be nothing reasonable about this.
James was good, given the circumstances. “Very solid,” as Trojans coach Andy Enfield said afterward. Three rebounds. Two assists. Two thefts. A block to chase to add to the family stash. And, inevitably, a missed free throw in the final minute that essentially made it easier for Long Beach State to take the game into overtime.
He looked like a player who could be a nice addition. He left everyone wondering who he will be.
This is what is real now. Bronny James is essentially the offspring of modern American aristocracy, performing her particular duty in plain sight. Nobility, obliged. He could be what Michael Jordan’s sons never were. What Gigi Bryant never had the chance to be. It could be something completely different and all about her. Whatever happens will be the product of an immense, unfair and inevitable life, now lived with more people watching and waiting than ever before.
Sunday wasn’t the highlight, even though it felt like one. It was the beginning of a deeply and extraordinarily intriguing story. Or at least the part where it gets cool.
(Photo of Bronny James waiting to catch the ball as LeBron James watches: Katelyn Mulcahy/Getty Images)