LeBron Raymone "Bronny" James Jr.
(born October 6, 2004)
[ is an American basketball player. He was named a ]McDonald's All-American
McDonald's Corporation is an American multinational fast food chain, founded in 1940 as a restaurant operated by Richard and Maurice McDonald, in San Bernardino, California, United States. They rechristened their business as a hamburger ...
as a senior
Senior (shortened as Sr.) means "the elder" in Latin and is often used as a suffix for the elder of two or more people in the same family with the same given name, usually a parent or grandparent. It may also refer to:
* Senior (name), a surname ...
in 2023. He is the eldest child of professional basketball player LeBron James
LeBron Raymone James Sr. (; born December 30, 1984) is an American professional basketball player for the Los Angeles Lakers of the National Basketball Association (NBA). Nicknamed "King James", he is widely considered one of the greatest pl ...
.
Early life
Bronny James was born on October 6, 2004, to then-reigning NBA Rookie of the Year
The National Basketball Association's Rookie of the Year Award is an annual National Basketball Association (NBA) award given to the top rookie(s) of the regular season. Initiated following the 1952–53 NBA season, it confers the Eddie Gottl ...
, LeBron James, aged 19, and his then-girlfriend Savannah Brinson, aged 18. James was raised by both of his parents, and they married in 2013.
As a child, James played several sports including basketball and soccer
Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of 11 players who primarily use their feet to propel the ball around a rectangular field called a pitch. The objective of the game is ...
, but his father did not allow him to play football
Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly c ...
or ice hockey
Ice hockey (or simply hockey) is a team sport played on ice skates, usually on an ice skating rink with lines and markings specific to the sport. It belongs to a family of sports called hockey. In ice hockey, two opposing teams use ice hock ...
over safety concerns. By 2014, James was being featured in basketball highlight reels that drew national attention. In February 2018, James guided Old Trail School in Bath Township, Summit County, Ohio, where he attended middle school, to an Independent School League tournament win.
James competed with various Amateur Athletic Union
The Amateur Athletic Union (AAU) is an amateur sports organization based in the United States. A multi-sport organization, the AAU is dedicated exclusively to the promotion and development of amateur sports and physical fitness programs. It has ...
(AAU) basketball teams before high school. At age nine, he played for the Miami City Ballers at a fourth grade AAU tournament while being observed by Kentucky Wildcats
The Kentucky Wildcats are the men's and women's intercollegiate athletic squads of the University of Kentucky (UK), a founding member of the Southeastern Conference. The Kentucky Wildcats is the student body of the University of Kentucky. 30,473 ...
head coach John Calipari
John Vincent Calipari (born February 10, 1959) is an American basketball coach. Since 2009, he has been the head coach of the University of Kentucky men's team, with whom he won the NCAA Championship in 2012. He has been named Naismith College C ...
. In June 2015, James led the Gulf Coast Blue Chips AAU team to a fourth grade
Fourth grade (also called grade four, equivalent to Year 5 in England and Wales, and Year 4 in Australia) is a year of Elementary education in some countries. In North America, the fourth grade is the fifth school year of elementary school. Stud ...
championship at the League Dallas/Hype Sports Summer Jam.
In March 2018, he helped the North Coast Blue Chips capture a John Lucas All-Star Weekend title in Houston
Houston (; ) is the most populous city in Texas, the most populous city in the Southern United States, the fourth-most populous city in the United States, and the sixth-most populous city in North America, with a population of 2,304,580 in ...
. On April 2, 2018, his Blue Chips finished undefeated and claimed the under-13 championship at the NY2LA Swish 'N Dish tournament in Wisconsin
Wisconsin () is a state in the upper Midwestern United States. Wisconsin is the 25th-largest state by total area and the 20th-most populous. It is bordered by Minnesota to the west, Iowa to the southwest, Illinois to the south, Lake M ...
. In June, James represented the same team at the Jr. National Basketball Association
The National Basketball Association (NBA) is a professional basketball league in North America. The league is composed of 30 teams (29 in the United States and 1 in Canada) and is one of the major professional sports leagues in the United S ...
(NBA) Midwest Championships against ninth grade opponents and advanced to the quarterfinals. In April 2019, despite being younger than most of the competition at age 14, he joined AAU team Strive for Greatness at the under-16 Nike Elite Youth Basketball League
The Nike Elite Youth Basketball League, also known as Nike EYBL, or simply EYBL, is a basketball circuit for teams of players aged 17 and under. The circuit was founded in 2010 and is composed of AAU travel teams. Both boys and girls play in the E ...
(EYBL) in Indianapolis
Indianapolis (), colloquially known as Indy, is the state capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Indiana and the seat of Marion County. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the consolidated population of Indianapolis and Marion ...
, where he faced a number of highly coveted recruits and drew praise from scouts.
On August 6, 2018, James enrolled at Crossroads School, a private
Private or privates may refer to:
Music
* " In Private", by Dusty Springfield from the 1990 album ''Reputation''
* Private (band), a Denmark-based band
* "Private" (Ryōko Hirosue song), from the 1999 album ''Private'', written and also recorde ...
K–12
K–12, from kindergarten to 12th grade, is an American English expression that indicates the range of years of publicly supported primary and secondary education found in the United States, which is similar to publicly supported school grade ...
school in Santa Monica, California
Santa Monica (; Spanish language, Spanish: ''Santa Mónica'') is a city in Los Angeles County, California, Los Angeles County, situated along Santa Monica Bay on California's South Coast (California), South Coast. Santa Monica's 2020 United Sta ...
. California state rules prevented him from immediately joining the varsity team
In most English-speaking countries, varsity is an abbreviation of the word ''university''. In the United States and Canada, the term is mostly used in relation to sports teams.
Varsity in the United Kingdom
In the United Kingdom, varsity team ...
because he was in eighth grade. On December 3, 2018, in his first game for the school, James scored 27 points in a 61–48 victory over Culver City Middle School
Culver City Unified School District, abbreviated CCUSD, is a school district located in Culver City, California that serves approximately 6,500 pupils in a variety of schools.
The Culver City Unified School District primarily consists of five K ...
.
High school career
On May 29, 2019, James transferred to Sierra Canyon School
, motto_translation = Excellence is its own reward
, established = 1978
, type = Independent, Coeducational
, head_name = Head of School
, head = James P. Skrumbis
, ...
, a private
Private or privates may refer to:
Music
* " In Private", by Dusty Springfield from the 1990 album ''Reputation''
* Private (band), a Denmark-based band
* "Private" (Ryōko Hirosue song), from the 1999 album ''Private'', written and also recorde ...
K–12
K–12, from kindergarten to 12th grade, is an American English expression that indicates the range of years of publicly supported primary and secondary education found in the United States, which is similar to publicly supported school grade ...
school in Chatsworth, Los Angeles, for his freshman year of high school. He joined the school with his brother Bryce and incoming senior Zaire Wade
Zaire Blessing Dwayne Wade (, born February 4, 2002) is an American professional basketball player who plays for the Cape Town Tigers of the Basketball Africa League (BAL). He is the eldest child of the retired professional basketball player Dw ...
, son of basketball player Dwyane Wade
Dwyane Tyrone Wade Jr. (; born January 17, 1982) is an American former professional basketball player. Wade spent the majority of his 16-year career playing for the Miami Heat of the National Basketball Association (NBA) and won three NBA champi ...
, a longtime teammate of James's father. In the following months, James was followed to Sierra Canyon by five-star recruits, Brandon Boston Jr.
Brandon Elliot "B. J." Boston Jr. (born November 28, 2001) is an American professional basketball player for the Los Angeles Clippers of the National Basketball Association (NBA). He played college basketball for the Kentucky Wildcats.
High schoo ...
and Ziaire Williams
Ziaire Williams (born September 12, 2001) is an American professional basketball player for the Memphis Grizzlies of the National Basketball Association (NBA). He played college basketball for the Stanford Cardinal.
Early life
Williams was born ...
. Entering the season, the team was considered one of the best in high school basketball, with ESPN
ESPN (originally an initialism for Entertainment and Sports Programming Network) is an American international basic cable sports channel owned by ESPN Inc., owned jointly by The Walt Disney Company (80%) and Hearst Communications (20%). The ...
networks airing 15 of its games. On November 21, 2019, James made his high school debut, scoring 10 points off the bench in a blowout win over Montgomery High School. On December 14, James scored 15 points, including a go-ahead layup, and was named game most valuable player
In team sports, a most valuable player award, abbreviated 'MVP award', is an honor typically bestowed upon an individual (or individuals, in the instance of a tie) whose individual performance is the greatest in an entire league, for a particu ...
(MVP) in a victory over his father's alma mater, St. Vincent–St. Mary High School. On January 15, 2020, he scored a season-high 17 points in a win over Viewpoint School
Viewpoint School is an independent school located in Calabasas, California. The school is coeducational, with students enrolled from Transitional Kindergarten through Twelfth Grade. Enrollment in the 2014–15 school year was 1,200, making it the ...
. As a freshman, James averaged 4.1 points in 15 minutes per game and was Sierra Canyon's only player to appear in all 34 games of the season. In his sophomore season, James tore his meniscus, which required surgery to repair. On January 24, 2023, James was named a McDonald's All-American
McDonald's Corporation is an American multinational fast food chain, founded in 1940 as a restaurant operated by Richard and Maurice McDonald, in San Bernardino, California, United States. They rechristened their business as a hamburger ...
, 20 years after his father's selection.
Recruiting
When James was nine years old, then-Ohio State
The Ohio State University, commonly called Ohio State or OSU, is a public land-grant research university in Columbus, Ohio. A member of the University System of Ohio, it has been ranked by major institutional rankings among the best public ...
coach Thad Matta
Thad Michael Matta (born July 11, 1967) is an American college basketball coach and the current head coach of the Butler Bulldogs men's basketball team. From 2004 to 2017, Matta led the Ohio State Buckeyes to five Big Ten Conference regular seas ...
joked that he needed to offer him a scholarship
A scholarship is a form of financial aid awarded to students for further education. Generally, scholarships are awarded based on a set of criteria such as academic merit, diversity and inclusion, athletic skill, and financial need.
Scholarsh ...
. By 2015, James had already received basketball scholarship offers from colleges, although the specific names were not announced. His father commented, "It should be a violation, you shouldn't be recruiting 10-year-old kids." As of 2021, his 247Sports.com
247Sports is an American network of websites that focus mainly on athletic recruitment in college football and basketball. It is owned and operated by Paramount.
The website hosts a large network of team-specific subsites, with each subsite be ...
recruiting profile lists his schools of interest as Kentucky
Kentucky ( , ), officially the Commonwealth of Kentucky, is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States and one of the states of the Upper South. It borders Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio to the north; West Virginia and Virginia to ...
, Duke
Duke is a male title either of a monarch ruling over a duchy, or of a member of royalty, or nobility. As rulers, dukes are ranked below emperors, kings, grand princes, grand dukes, and sovereign princes. As royalty or nobility, they are ran ...
, Kansas
Kansas () is a state in the Midwestern United States. Its capital is Topeka, and its largest city is Wichita. Kansas is a landlocked state bordered by Nebraska to the north; Missouri to the east; Oklahoma to the south; and Colorado to the ...
, North Carolina
North Carolina () is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States. The state is the 28th largest and 9th-most populous of the United States. It is bordered by Virginia to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the east, Georgia and So ...
, and UCLA
The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a teachers college then known as the southern branch of the California St ...
, with Kentucky being the only school that has made a scholarship offer. 247Sports.com
247Sports is an American network of websites that focus mainly on athletic recruitment in college football and basketball. It is owned and operated by Paramount.
The website hosts a large network of team-specific subsites, with each subsite be ...
dropped James from 27 to 52 in its prospect rankings at the start of his junior year. James moved up from 49 to 43 on ESPN's list in his junior year after starting his freshman year ranked in the 20s and being ranked the best player in the class of 2023 while in middle school. During the summer of 2022, Rivals.com
Rivals.com is a network of websites that focus mainly on college football and basketball recruiting in the United States. The network was started in 1998 and employs more than 300 personnel.
History
Rivals.com was founded in 1998 by Jim Heckma ...
dropped James from 29 to 60 in its prospect rankings. In August 2022, interest was received from multiple universities, including Michigan
Michigan () is a state in the Great Lakes region of the upper Midwestern United States. With a population of nearly 10.12 million and an area of nearly , Michigan is the 10th-largest state by population, the 11th-largest by area, and the ...
, Ohio State
The Ohio State University, commonly called Ohio State or OSU, is a public land-grant research university in Columbus, Ohio. A member of the University System of Ohio, it has been ranked by major institutional rankings among the best public ...
, Oregon
Oregon () is a U.S. state, state in the Pacific Northwest region of the Western United States. The Columbia River delineates much of Oregon's northern boundary with Washington (state), Washington, while the Snake River delineates much of it ...
, UCLA
The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a teachers college then known as the southern branch of the California St ...
, and USC
USC most often refers to:
* University of South Carolina, a public research university
** University of South Carolina System, the main university and its satellite campuses
**South Carolina Gamecocks, the school athletic program
* University of ...
. On August 19, 2022, James received an offer from Memphis
Memphis most commonly refers to:
* Memphis, Egypt, a former capital of ancient Egypt
* Memphis, Tennessee, a major American city
Memphis may also refer to:
Places United States
* Memphis, Alabama
* Memphis, Florida
* Memphis, Indiana
* Memp ...
.
Player profile
James stands and can play the point guard
The point guard (PG), also called the one or the point, is one of the five Basketball positions, positions in a regulation basketball game. A point guard has perhaps the most specialized role of any position. Point guards are expected to run t ...
and shooting guard
The shooting guard (SG), also known as the two, two guard or off guard,Shooting guards are 6'3"–6'7"BBC Sports academy URL last accessed 2006-09-09. is one of the five traditional positions in a regulation basketball game. A shooting guard's m ...
positions. He has a "smooth shooting stroke" and is an adept ball handler and passer. Scouts have additionally commended his "feel for the game" and poise on the basketball court.[
James has worn the number 0 jersey because it is the number worn by his favorite NBA player, ]Russell Westbrook
Russell Westbrook III (born November 12, 1988) is an American professional basketball player for the Los Angeles Lakers of the National Basketball Association (NBA). A member of the NBA 75th Anniversary Team, he is a nine-time NBA All-Star and ...
. Entering eighth grade, he switched to a number 23 jersey in honor of his father.[
]
Personal life
James' godfather is NBA All-Star Chris Paul.
In 2020, James signed with esports
Esports, short for electronic sports, is a form of competition using video games. Esports often takes the form of organized, multiplayer video game competitions, particularly between professional players, individually or as teams. Although orga ...
organization FaZe Clan
FaZe Clan (formerly FaZe Sniping) is a professional eSports, esports and entertainment organization headquartered in Los Angeles, California, USA. Founded on May 30, 2010, the organization has players from around the world, across multiple game ...
.
References
External links
Sierra Canyon Trailblazers bio
{{DEFAULTSORT:James, Bronny
2004 births
African-American basketball players
American men's basketball players
Basketball players from Los Angeles
FaZe Clan
Guards (basketball)
Bronny
LeBron Raymone "Bronny" James Jr. (born October 6, 2004) is an American basketball player. He was named a McDonald's All-American as a senior (education), senior in 2023. He is the eldest child of professional basketball player LeBron James.
E ...
Living people
Sierra Canyon School alumni
Sportspeople from Los Angeles
Twitch (service) streamers