The UCLA Bruins men’s basketball program has been incredibly active in the transfer portal. The USC Trojans have also been active in the portal, and both LA schools should be viewed as top teams in their first year of Big Ten Conference play.
As for the Trojans, they saw Bronny James, the highly-regarded son of LeBron James, enter the portal while declaring for the 2024 NBA Draft.
It remains to be seen what type of value Bronny has, especially after a bit of a disappointing freshman year with USC. But, UCLA head coach Mick Cronin had some interesting comments earlier in April that surely look different now, especially with the Los Angeles Lakers’ season coming to an end on Monday against the Denver Nuggets.
Cronin was on SPEAK and revealed what he would tell Bronny about the future plans:
“Well I would tell any young player that in his situation he’s got to improve right. I mean he didn’t play well enough this year to show he was ready. Now you can say well he didn’t have that much opportunity because he was behind Isaiah Collier and Boogie Ellis you know so, and those are great players. And I know Bronny from his time at Sierra Canyon, you know I actually recruited his father, I was the only guy that drove through snowstorms. Huggins used to make me do that to go up to Akron. His situation’s just not like anybody else you know. So if your father’s going to have influence do you go now so you can play with your father? So it’s just so different.”
The full clip is below, and the situation about Bronny will be something to monitor for all of college basketball.