USC Basketball: Why Bill Simmons Thinks Bronny James Should Stay In College

Alex Kirschenbaum | Apr 15, 2024

Feb 15, 2024; Los Angeles, California, USA; Southern California Trojans guard Bronny James (6) looks on. / Alex Gallardo-USA TODAY Sports

Like all nine of USC's 2023-24 top rotation players, freshman combo guard Bronny James is moving on this offseason. Bronny, son of All-Star Los Angeles Lakers combo forward LeBron, declared for the NBA draft while also entering the NCAA transfer portal, meaning that, wherever he plays next year, it's not going to be for the Trojans.

USC finished with a paltry 15-18 record on the year and missed the NCAA Tournament entirely. Bronny played just

On The Bill Simmons Podcast, The Ringer's Simmons and Ryen Russillo both seemed to concur that the best road Bronny could travel would be taking another year of scholastic seasoning before he made the pro ball leap.

"I mean, if Bronny wants to actually have an NBA career, he should stay in college for another year and try to have a really good college right? This last college year he had was about as bad it could've gone, starting with... the cardiac arrest, the fact that he ended up on a terrible team, the coach left right after the season," Simmsons said. "I'm sure they would've gotten invited to the NIT [Tournament]."

"I would want to try to run that back and have a good college season before I entered the draft," Simmons continued. "But if you're LeBron, you're like, 'I don't know if I have one year left, two years left, I want to play with my son.' You can talk yourself into that, right?"

This makes plenty of sense. Bronny had an underwhelming freshman season, beyond his health issues. Across 25 games (just six starts), the 6'4" Sierra Canyon School product averaged just 4.8 points on .366/.267/.676 shooting splits, 2.8 rebounds, 2.1 assists and 0.8 steals a night. Again, this was on a bad Trojans team.

As the son of a billionaire, Bronny is hardly hurting for cash. He also has a Name, Image and Likeness licensing portfolio worth an estimated $5.9 million, reports Dan Treacy of The Sporting News. So with all that in mind, what's the rush?

"Is [LeBron] going to go somewhere where it gives him less of a chance of winning just to play with his son?" Russillo wondered.

"My guess is that, if the kid ends up being in the draft, he's going to want to play with him, and that will trump any other desire he has as a basketball player," Simmons posited.

"This offseason, it's [about] 'getting the most money I can, hopefully out of the Lakers, they take care of me the way they took care of Kobe, maybe there's some sort of option thing on the third year --'" Russillo started.

"Or second year! Yeah maybe it's like $100 million for two years but he's got an opt-out after the first year, and they can rig it that way," Simmons jumped in.

"I just am looking forward to it because if they are on the same team and they do play together next year, it'll be the first time we've had the country just cheering on nepotism," Russillo noted, winkingly.