LOS ANGELES — As Kim Kardashian, Kendall Jenner and Bad Bunny walked to their $30,000 seats at halftime, massive bodyguards stayed shut. Kardashian stopped to talk with Rich Paul, the mega-agent of LeBron James and different NBA stars, whereas Jenner waved to buddies as she handed. Bad Bunny, the Latin music celebrity who set a Spotify report final yr with 18.5 billion streams, trailed the 2 style icons.

That evening, Crypto.com Arena — the place the Los Angeles Lakers have been internet hosting the Golden State Warriors in Game 6 of the NBA’s Western Conference semifinals — appeared like a Hollywood occasion, full of huge males with earpieces, and glossy chains and rings worn by the VIPs who have been there to look at LeBron James and his teammates ultimately advance within the playoffs. Rappers Jack Harlow and Tyler, the Creator embraced each other. Lewis Hamilton, the Formula One star, stood and nodded to a screaming crowd when he was proven on the JumboTron. Blockbuster actors Michael B. Jordan and Leonardo DiCaprio cheered from the entrance row.

Two miles away, Craig Kelley, USC‘s chief advertising officer and affiliate athletic director, puzzled how his college will deal with house video games when Bronny James — son of Lakers celebrity LeBron James, boasting greater than 7 million Instagram followers and having not too long ago dedicated to the Trojans — arrives within the fall and a number of the identical celebrities determine they’d like to look at him, too.

Next season, father and son will probably be separated by a two-mile stretch alongside Figueroa Street between the Galen Center, house of the Trojans, and Crypto.com Arena, the place the Lakers play.

After the Lakers have been swept by the Denver Nuggets within the Western Conference finals Monday, nevertheless, LeBron James advised ESPN’s Dave McMenamin, “I got to think about it,” when he was requested to observe up on postgame feedback that alluded to potential retirement.

LeBron additionally mentioned he is nonetheless higher than “95 percent” of the NBA, and sources advised McMenamin this yr’s playoffs had been bodily taxing on the 38-year-old, so maybe his feedback have been extra emotional than life like.

Whether LeBron pushes ahead together with his dream to sooner or later play with Bronny or exits the sport this offseason as one of many biggest to ever step onto a basketball courtroom, the intrigue and anticipation round his son’s collegiate profession will persist.

“There is an added tier here, an added level, for sure, with the family ties Bronny comes with and the friends that not only he has but that his family has, and the following that could follow him and come to games on any given night,” Kelley advised ESPN. “It’s up to us to prepare.”

There are not any comparisons to the highlight that may illuminate each Bronny bucket, move, shot, win, loss, rebound, foul, free throw, turnover, miss, triumph and problem in 2023-24. He is just not the primary athlete with a big social media following to play faculty basketball. He’s additionally not the primary little one of a high-profile athlete to play at this degree. But Bronny James is a member of basketball’s royal household, a projected lottery choose within the 2024 NBA draft (per ESPN) who comes with bodyguards and a legendary father — who at age 38 continues to compete at the very best ranges of the NBA and has been open about his need to increase his profession a couple of extra years simply so he can play subsequent to his son when he presumably joins the league in 2024.

With the eye, nevertheless, will come an intentional strategy from college officers, native police and personal safety personnel to make sure that the 18-year-old is free — and protected — to get pleasure from his on-campus expertise. At USC, Bronny will be a part of a category that features the kids of dignitaries, well-known actors and actresses, politicians and athletes. In faculty basketball, nevertheless, he will probably be a prince, drawing a crowd wherever he goes.

“Basketball-wise, you just need that big name to come there and bring that attention, and he’s the perfect person for that,” Chicago Bulls star DeMar Derozan, a former USC standout, mentioned not too long ago on Paul George’s “Podcast P” podcast. “I think the way he comes in, the way he’ll handle it and the attention he’s going to bring, I think it’s going to push USC to another level that we haven’t seen.”

IN 2019, BRONNY joined his Sierra Canyon teammates at an occasion known as Hoopfest in Dallas. The first day befell at an area highschool, earlier than the demand to see Bronny, only a freshman who got here off the bench at the time, grew. That prompted organizers to maneuver Sierra Canyon’s recreation the next day towards native powerhouse Duncanville to American Airlines Center, the place the Dallas Mavericks play. Scalpers confirmed up outdoors the world, promoting tickets to the highschool recreation earlier than tipoff.

When a gaggle of teenage ladies tried to get a selfie with Bronny inside, a safety crew stepped in entrance of them and advised them to maneuver again. One of the women appeared perplexed and one other mentioned, “Oh?” Surrounded by his touring layer of safety, Bronny did not even appear to note. He laughed together with his buddies because it all unfolded behind him. Perhaps a well-known scene in Hollywood, faculty basketball is just not recognized for internet hosting gamers with particular person safety particulars. But that is what Bronny will carry to USC.

The college is already a soccer large, starring quarterback Caleb Williams, who may turn into the second participant in collegiate historical past to win the Heisman Trophy twice. Basketball is making waves, nevertheless, and never simply due to Bronny. Juju Watkins, the No. 1 ladies’s basketball recruit within the nation, arrives this fall, becoming a member of a listing of stellar ladies’s gamers at school historical past, together with Lisa Leslie and Cheryl Miller. Isaiah Collier, the No. 1 recruit in males’s basketball, and D.J. Rodman, who transferred from Washington State and is the son of Dennis Rodman, will play alongside Bronny subsequent yr, too.

Despite a run of 5 NCAA match appearances over the previous eight seasons, together with an Elite Eight run in 2021, males’s basketball has hardly ever loved sellout crowds. The program averaged simply 3,860 spectators at the ten,258-seat Galen Center through the 2021-22 season, per probably the most not too long ago accessible knowledge from the NCAA.

This yr, to cope with the star energy, the varsity may create a separate entrance for celebrities and different VIPs who need to watch Bronny and USC males’s basketball. It additionally plans to regulate safety measures for gamers as normal attendance will increase.

Per Kelley, the ticket costs will rise, too. But a “Bronny tax” is just not the plan. “I know it’s going to be hard to believe, but with or without Bronny, the prices were more than likely going to go up by a few percentage points just because that’s just the nature of the business,” Kelley mentioned. “Most teams are increasing their prices 2% to 3% annually. We’ve actually been flat for quite some time, and so we were going up in price just because the team has just gotten better. And you do add some notable name players.”

This is just not the primary time this system has skilled a significant shift in recognition. The crew hadn’t been to the NCAA match in 4 years when Harold Miner, nicknamed Baby Jordan due to his high-flying maneuvers, arrived in 1989.

“There were so few fans that the first few games of my freshman year, you could hear people talking in the stands during games,” Miner, a 1992 consensus All-American who averaged 23.5 PPG in three years with the Trojans earlier than the Miami Heat made him the twelfth choose within the 1992 NBA draft, advised ESPN. “You could hear conversations going on in the stands.”

Miner, who’s one in every of two USC males’s basketball gamers over the previous 40 years to have his quantity retired (DeRozan is the opposite), was a hometown hero who can relate to the frenzy Bronny will expertise subsequent season in a metropolis filled with celebrities, albeit with out the TikTookay and Twitter consideration.

He mentioned he knew his status had modified when he walked round Los Angeles and other people started to name his title or ask for autographs, after he led the crew to the NCAA match within the early Nineties. Considered one of many greatest stars in USC males’s basketball historical past, Miner mentioned he would advise Bronny to remain true to himself.

“All you can do is listen, go out, work hard every day and get better,” Miner mentioned. “But for yourself, just try to be the best Bronny you can be for you and just try to see where you can take this.”

Police Chief Lauretta Hill, who leads USC’s division of public security, mentioned her workplace is at all times involved in regards to the chance that an athlete’s recognition may affect their security. But the varsity’s expertise with celebrities and others with excessive profiles means they are going to be ready for his arrival, she mentioned.

Last week, Sasha Obama — daughter of President Barack Obama and Michelle Obama — graduated from the varsity. Her mother and father, and the Secret Service officers who accompany them in every single place, have been in attendance. Princess Salma bint Abdullah, daughter of King Abdullah II and Queen Rania of Jordan, graduated from USC final week, too. She comes from a royal household with a internet price of $750 million. Natalia Bryant, daughter of the late Kobe Bryant, at present research right here.

Hill’s division has a unit dedicated to social media threats, and it additionally coordinates with the college’s workplace of government safety companies, which handles private safety for high-profile college students.

To Hill, Bronny’s place in faculty basketball could be distinctive, however his presence on a star-studded campus is just not, and that is a very good factor. At USC, Bronny will stand out but in addition match proper in.

“We do have security plans in place for major events,” she mentioned. “We also have active threat management and assessment units. That threat unit is constantly monitoring social media for any types of threats or issues that may come up so we could change our posture if we needed to. We can scale up. We can scale down. We can address those issues or threats that may be out there.”

She added: “We anticipate that we’ll have a lot more attention to basketball because we also have the No. 1 female recruit coming and the No. 1 male recruit coming.”

THE REACH OF LeBron James is obvious to anybody who tries to inform a narrative about Bronny. Off the courtroom, past his enterprise offers and achievements, one of many NBA celebrity’s biggest feats is his capability to protect his son and permit him to mature and blossom with out exposing him to extra consideration.

Bronny has famously by no means granted an interview outdoors a quick information convention at the McDonald’s All-American recreation in March. And should you name anybody connected to him, they will seemingly decline to speak about him. A highschool administrator agreed to a dialog in regards to the future USC signee however then determined towards it. An official at a college that performed Sierra Canyon advised ESPN that his college doesn’t discuss opponents. There have been coaches who did not return texts, and others who demanded that every little thing they mentioned be off the report. Even those that did speak for this story did so with warning.

From outdoors the circle, it appears excessive. But for a household led by the best basketball participant since Michael Jordan, who was a star lengthy earlier than the arrival of social media, all of it is smart. As does choosing USC, a college that may provide Bronny the chance to develop as a participant, the safety his profile will demand and sufficient well-known classmates to make him appear considerably regular. That’s an expertise he wouldn’t get at most locations.

“If you go to Lexington, Kentucky, you’re going to stand out,” mentioned Todd Boyd, creator of “Young, Black, Rich, and Famous: The Rise of the NBA, the Hip Hop Invasion, and the Transformation of American Culture” and a professor at USC. “It’s not a place you associate with famous people. If you go to Durham, North Carolina, or Lawrence, Kansas, you’re going to stand out. Eugene, Oregon? You’re going to stand out, because these are not places we associate with celebrities and famous people.

“I imply, Bronny goes to get a whole lot of consideration. People know him from social media. He will get consideration when [LeBron James] comes and sits courtside to look at him play. That’s going to get consideration. All these items are going to get consideration, but it surely’s not new [in L.A.].”

Cleveland High (Reseda, Calif.) head coach Dagem Asfaw was an assistant with Strive for Greatness, Bronny’s grassroots squad, at a tournament in Kentucky last summer when a young fan spotted Bronny and his team attempting to leave through a back door for safety precautions. Within minutes, 30 kids were trying to get to the staircase to see Bronny, before his security team handled the situation.

Asfaw needed to take care of the identical logistical challenges when his college hosted Sierra Canyon in November. There have been secret entrances and exits, and a particular part the varsity created simply for that night.

LeBron attended, though Bronny didn’t play within the lopsided win for Sierra Canyon. Still, the varsity bought 60 VIP seats for $100 apiece, seats occupied by notable of us, resembling Big Boi from the rap group Outkast.

“I didn’t really tell anybody [LeBron James] was going to come besides principals and administrators,” Asfaw mentioned. “So it was packed. A lot of the people, a lot of the students … they wanted to see Bronny play. But there was also this mystique in the air with people saying, ‘Is LeBron going to show up?’ And LeBron ended up showing up to the game, which was amazing.”

That’s the identical situation USC hopes to accommodate within the fall. And there will probably be instances subsequent season when a Los Angeles basketball fan has an opportunity to catch each Bronny at a USC recreation and his father at a Lakers recreation, not solely on the identical evening, however on the identical avenue.

The Lakers’ 122-101 win over the Warriors in that Game 6 showcased a glimpse of what USC males’s basketball would possibly expertise when the Galen Center turns into one of many sport’s hottest venues.

It all begins with LeBron James, who lingered by his locker after the sport, his legs wrapped in ice. He talked about to teammate Anthony Davis that his youthful son Bryce’s AAU squad had confronted robust competitors in its most up-to-date match. Then he stood up, turned to his locker and pressed play.

The groovy bassline of soul singer Bobby Womack’s “Across 110th Street” started to increase by means of a water-resistant speaker, echoing above any dialog within the room. In that tune, Womack sings, “You don’t know what you’ll do until you’re put under pressure.”

No faculty basketball participant in America understands that line greater than Bronny, who performs beneath a large microscope that may proceed to observe him in every single place he goes subsequent season.

“We’re at USC in Los Angeles and this is the biggest stage you get,” USC head coach Andy Enfield mentioned. “We’ve got the No. 1 basketball market in the country here. We’ve got the Lakers and Clippers right down the street. We’ve got UCLA across town and all the other great colleges and high schools, the AAU programs here. So it’s a big, big basketball city.

“When we recruit gamers, we are saying, ‘Hey, you are coming into the No. 1 basketball metropolis in America and you are going to be within the highlight.’ And now with Bronny’s scenario, the highlight most likely intensifies. And so that you embrace it, get pleasure from it and also you go do one thing about it.”