Bronny James Rumors: LeBron's Son 'Expected to Devote His Energy' to 2024 NBA Draft

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Bronny James is keeping the door open to return to college for his sophomore season, but the 19-year-old's priority right now is the NBA draft.

Per The Athletic's Sam Vecenie, James is "expected to devote his energy" to the 2024 NBA draft process to find a landing spot that he and his agency, Klutch Sports, would "find desirable."

There was speculation that James was going to transfer from USC after head coach Andy Enfield left the program to take the same position at SMU.

LeBron James told reporters after the Los Angeles Lakers' 128-111 victory over the Toronto Raptors on April 2 he didn't know where the talk about Bronny transferring was coming from, but he did have "some tough decisions to make" and the family would support him no matter what.

Bronny officially announced on April 5 he was going to enter the NBA draft, while also maintaining his college eligibility and entering the transfer portal.

It's unclear how much interest there will be in James for the 2024 draft. Vecenie noted he spoke to five people who work for NBA teams, with four of them saying he would go undrafted:

"When asked why they wouldn't select him, two of the four evaluators said they thought he would never be good enough. The other two felt James had a chance to be good enough down the road, but it would take too much time and investment to develop him, and they'd rather get him later in his career after another team did that work."

The fifth person who responded to Vecenie said they would be willing to draft James "late in the second round to be a two-way contract player because they liked his high hoops intelligence and defensive potential."

B/R's Jonathan Wasserman didn't have James among the 58 players selected in his most recent mock draft that was released on Tuesday.

James had an underwhelming freshman season at USC, though some of his performance can be taken with a grain of salt because it was discovered last summer he had a congenital heart defect after going into cardiac arrest during a practice.

The condition is manageable and he was able to play in each of USC's final 25 games after he made his season debut on Dec. 10. He averaged 4.8 points on 36.6 percent shooting, 2.8 rebounds and 2.1 assists per game.