Category: Sierra Canyon Boys Basketball

Zaire Wade to go to Brewster Academy for post-grad year

The oldest son of Dwyane Wade will pursue his hoop dreams at the lauded Brewster Academy in New Hampshire.

The oldest son of Dwyane Wade, Zaire Wade, who transferred to Sierra Canyon for his senior season to play with Bronny James, as well as other high-ranked prospects like Stanford’s Ziaire Williams, has decided to take a different path in following his hoop dreams than going straight to college.

Wade will be taking a post-grad year and continuing the pursuit of his hoop dreams at the well-regarded Brewster Academy in New Hampshire. Several NBA players, including Isaiah Thomas, Denver’s Will Barton, Charlotte’s Devonte’ Graham, and Indiana’s TJ Warren, all spent some time at Brewster during their youth. Wade announced his decision on Instagram on Tuesday.

LeBron James shared his best wishes to Wade: “Good luck nephew! Go get it! 🙏🏾💪🏾❤️”

According to recruiting analyst Jake Weingarten, Wade has a couple of Division I offers but is deciding to take another year to develop.

Wade dealt with injuries for the first part of the season with Sierra Canyon, while his father Dwyane wasn’t shy to publicly air his displeasure with Sierra Canyon’s coach Andre Chevalier for not giving Zaire enough playing time down the final stretch of the season. Hopefully, for the Wades, the fresh start and the extra year of development will help Zaire have a better runway into his college career.

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Sierra Canyon star Ziaire Williams commits to Stanford on UNINTERRUPTED

The star player of the Sierra Canyon Trail Blazers that made it all the way to the CIF Open State Final is going to Stanford.

Sierra Canyon’s star player Ziaire Williams, who hit a thrilling game-winner for the Trail Blazers before the coronavirus canceled sports all across the country, still had a big decision to make even though the season is over. As senior, Williams had to decide where he wanted to go to college, even if college sports and college basketball don’t start when the coming school year does.

But on Sunday morning, Williams announced his choice, indicating that he will stay on the west coast to play his college ball with the Stanford Cardinal. Williams announced the decision through LeBron’s UNINTERRUPTED sports media company, which also had a camera crew following Sierra Canyon through the season.

Just as it’s unclear when sports will return in any way at the college level, there’s also plenty of uncertainty of when sports will resume at the youth and high school levels. Even though Williams is gone, Sierra Canyon will have high expectations once again whenever high school basketball resumes.

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Bronny James gamed with NBA players in SLAM’s Call of Duty tourney

Bronny James Jr. showed out on the sticks Saturday night during SLAM’s Call of Duty tourney

At 15 years old Bronny James Jr. is in the prime of his video game days, and he showed he is not to be played with on the sticks Saturday night.

SLAM held a Call of Duty: Modern Warfare tourney, and it live streamed the games on Twitch.  A freshman at Sierra Canyon, Bronny played with and against NBA players in the 6 vs. 6 tourney. Meyers Leonard, Mario Hezonja, Zach LaVine and Donovan Mitchell were on his team.

The NBA players on the opposing team were Ben Simmons, Royce O’Neale, Josh Hart, along with Kentucky commit Terrence Clarke. Bronny and his team lost the series, 4-3, nearly coming back from a 3-0 deficit.

The first game Bronny and his team won was Capture the Flag on the map Speedball. Hezonja was the MVP of that game, but Bronny and Leonard were viable sidekicks. Along with playing well in Capture the Flag, Bronny also had a solid game when the group played Headquarters on Shoot House.

With the country engaging in social distancing to slow the spread of the coronavirus, events like these can be a good way for athletes and their fans to interact with each other.

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Ziaire Williams hits game-winner to send Sierra Canyon to CIF Final

Highly-touted recruit Ziaire Williams hit a game-winner to help Sierra Canyon get to a third straight California state championship game.

Although LeBron James and his Los Angeles Lakers came up short in their comeback in Tuesday night’s unexpected home loss to the Brooklyn Nets, somebody else in the James family got to be on the winning side of an incredible comeback.

After trailing by double-digits in the last few minutes of the game, the Sierra Canyon Trail Blazers punched their ticket to a third consecutive CIF state championship game, thanks to a last-second buzzer-beater by highly-touted recruit Ziaire Williams. According to Tarek Fattal of the L.A. Daily News, the Trail Blazers made a 13-0 run to win the game, capped by Williams’ bucket. After, Williams was rushed by his teammates, including Bronny James, who was in the right corner on the final possession.

Williams is a five-star recruit and considered one of the best high school players in the nation, but he has not yet chosen where he will play college basketball, or whether he will forgo the draft to train or play overseas.

Despite a ban on gatherings of over 1,000 people in nearby San Francisco, the CIF State Championship game is still scheduled to go on at 8 p.m. at the Golden 1 Center in Sacramento.

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LeBron James and Drake show up to cheer Bronny in playoffs

Los Angeles Lakers star LeBron James and his buddy Drake showed up to watch Bronny and Sierra Canyon in a big game.

LeBron James has an especially busy weekend, facing off against the Milwaukee Bucks on Friday before taking on the Los Angeles Clippers tomorrow afternoon, but just because he’s busy doesn’t mean he’s taking it easy on Saturday night as he went to go watch his son Bronny’s Sierra Canyon squad in the playoffs with a guy who knows plenty about working on the weekend.

One of LeBron’s favorite artists and a friend of his, Drake, joined LeBron as the two showed up to see Bronny and Sierra Canyon face off against Harvard Westlake in the CIF Regionals on Saturday night. Drake, of course, is a noted Sierra Canyon fan, according to Tarek Fattal of the L.A. Daily News.

Sierra Canyon is looking to continue their run to what they hope will be their third consecutive CIF Open Division state championship. With tonight’s game being against a fellow valley-area school in Harvard-Westlake, the game should be even more intense than your typical winner-take-all playoff game.

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Bronny James and Sierra Canyon defeat Mater Dei to win Open Division championship

Bronny James and Sierra Canyon defeat Mater Dei to win Open Division championship as Ziaire Williams and Brandon Boston Jr. show out for Trailblazers.

Bronny James’ Sierra Canyon Trailblazers are led by two seniors who will be playing in the 2020 McDonald’s All-American game on April 1 at the Toyota Center in Houston. Both of these young superstars—Brandon Boston Jr. and Ziaire Williams–showed out in a big way on Friday to help their team win the Open Division title against California powerhouse Mater Dei.

Williams, who is currently undecided on which collegiate program he will play for next year, scored a game-high 25 points to help deliver a 59-48 victory. Meanwhile, Boston–who will be attending Kentucky next season–added 16 points of his own. Fellow Kentucky commit, Devin Askew, scored 15 for Mater Dei while Wilhelm Breidenbach led the Monarchs with 18 points and 14 rebounds.

Bronny James did not score in the contest but he did compete defensively and provide energy off the bench as evidenced in the clip below shared by L.A. Daily News reporter, Tarek Fattal.

Sierra Canyon will now move on to the Southern California regional playoffs that begin on Wednesday as the high school basketball postseason continues to heat up.

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Bronny throws down amazing alley-oop as Sierra Canyon honors Kobe, Gigi

With LeBron James in attendance, Bronny Jr. and Zaire Wade honored the memory of Kobe and Gigi Bryant in the season’s final home game.

The Los Angeles Lakers are still in the process of grieving the tragic loss of Kobe Bryant, his daughter Gigi, and seven others in a helicopter crash on Sunday, with Tuesday’s scheduled game against the L.A. Clippers being postponed for a later date. But the cancellation gave LeBron James a special opportunity to watch his son Bronny and his Sierra Canyon teammates play their final regular season home game of the season, where they honored the memory of Kobe and Gigi.

Bronny wore a pair of Kobe’s last night with messages written on them to both Kobe and “Lil’ Sis” Gigi. And with his father watching courtside, Bronny threw down the best dunk of his young career.

Members of Sierra Canyon and Campbell Hall both took special 24-second and 8-second violations to honor Kobe’s memory. Also, the entire Sierra Canyon squad wore Kobe for the in-game tributes to him prior to moving to their regular uniforms for the rest of the game.

 

LeBron brushes off question about whether son gets drafted by Knicks

“He’s in ninth grade,” Los Angeles Lakers star LeBron James replied to a question about his son potentially being drafted by the Knicks.

Even now as LeBron James is in his career twilight, living his new life with his family in Los Angeles, the dream of seeing him play on a nightly basis at Madison Square Garden as a member of the New York Knicks still lives on. So much so that James was asked about potentially playing for the Knicks, in the event that his 14-year old son Bronny Jr. gets drafted by them.

The premise of the question, about LeBron’s son being drafted in some far-off future where LeBron is still in the league, as he hopes to be, was brushed off because LeBron just wants Bronny to worry about being in ninth grade.

Although Bronny and the Sierra Canyon team he is on already have a following that was bigger than anything we saw during LeBron’s high school career, he’s still in high school. LeBron and the family have also made sure to not let Bronny do any interviews with media outlets until he graduates.

After LeBron’s high school experience was anything but normal, LeBron is trying to make sure his kids have a little bit more normalcy in their school experiences.

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LeBron James attends Bronny Jr.’s game before Celtics-Lakers

The Los Angeles Lakers star will try to be an All-Star Dad and team leader on the same day, according to The Athletic’s Jared Weiss.

LeBron James is being an All-Star Dad on the same day that he plans to return to his regular job working nights as an NBA superstar later in the evening.

LeBron James will be in fan mode on Monday morning for Sierra Canyon’s game that tips off at 1 p.m. EST at the Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield, Mass. before going back to the TD Garden to face off against the Boston Celtics tonight at 7:30 p.m. ET. Tarek Fattal of the L.A. Daily News is on the scene in Springfield and confirmed LeBron’s arrival to support his son Bronny Jr. and the Sierra Canyon Trail Blazers.

Today’s game for Sierra Canyon against Paul VI at the Basketball Hall of Fame is being shown ESPN U. According to The Athletic’s Jared Weiss, LeBron will call in the chopper to be able to make it to the game without dealing with Boston’s notoriously bad traffic.

James and the Lakers are playing the second game of a five-game road trip later this evening.

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North Carolina Central University reportedly offers Bronny James a basketball scholarship

North Carolina Central University reportedly offers Bronny James a basketball scholarship.

Sierra Canyon (CA) High School freshman, Bronny James, received a scholarship offer from North Carolina Central University this weekend according to the recruiting website Verbal Commits. While NCCU competes outside of college basketball’s power five, the D-I offer is notable for a number of reasons beyond the fact that it will go down as the first offer the young king received this decade.

Outside of the standing offers Bronny has already received from schools like Kentucky and Duke whose coaches have close relationships with LeBron, this was also the first scholarship offer LeBron Jr. has received since his high school career began. He received it from a North Carolina Central program that has a history of going after high-profile recruits as well who are projected to make a brief stop before entering the league.

According to HBCU Gameday, NCCU coach LeVelle Moton continued to recruit Raleigh prep sensation John Wall despite the attention he received from Kentucky and elsewhere before he became the No. 1 pick in the 2010 NBA Draft. Moton, the Eagles coach since 2009, has also passed on hiring assistant coaching candidates who expressed on social media that they believe LeBron James is overrated.

The tweet on May 3, 2018 about passing on the coach who reached out to him because he posted that LeBron was overrated may go down as the chess move of all recruiting chess moves if Moton is able to pull off the improbable and secure Bronny’s services in a few years.

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