Bronny James' Company At Lakers Playoff Game Adds Fuel To USC Speculation As Recruitment Continues, Commitment Looms

Bronny James is set to announce a decision on his future any day now. The son of LeBron has until May 17 to sign with a college program, otherwise he could chose to play professionally for G-League Ignite, or even head overseas.

Either way, James is less than a month away from declaring his next step. But where will he end up?

There is a lot of speculation that James is down to two options: committing to USC or going pro. The smoke is suffocating and it may not present the full picture.

Is Bronny James going to college?

James has long been linked to Ohio State and Buckeyes head coach Chris Holtmann had an interesting note last week. He spoke about his program's current recruiting class at THE Foundation's NIL Spring Festival and left the door open for another player to get in the boat.

We have the finishing touches on our recruiting in the next week or two. We may add one more player. We just added a top-20 team that will come to the Schott in the first week or two. We cannot wait to get started.

Presumably, that "one more player" is James. Ohio State would love nothing more than to land the five-star son of the Akron and Cleveland legend.

Oregon may also be in the mix!

James, like his father, has a deal with Nike. Nike has close ties to the Ducks and Phil Knight pumps a lot of money into his alma mater's athletic programs. Could that connection lead to a commitment?

It's certainly possible that James could end up in Eugene, but that train of thought has faded in recent weeks and months.

Despite his last name and the constant spotlight shining down on his recruitment, James and his family have done a great job keeping things under wraps. There is no clear consensus as to what he may choose to do. Nobody really knows anything.

USC chatter only continues to get louder.

The general thought is that if James decides to play college basketball, he will stay home and play for Southern California. Andy Enfield has proved his ability to win in Los Angeles, it would keep James in the headlines which is great for marketing and NIL opportunities are substantial.

James' company at Monday night's Lakers game added fuel to the USC speculation fire.

He was sitting just one row up from Gavin Morris, the Trojans' assistant athletic director and director of player relations. Morris is one of USC's top recruiters.

And just two rows away was Lincoln Riley.

Morris and Riley's seating situation may have been a coincidence. It likely was.

Even still, for Morris to be sitting that close to James for an entire playoff game surely served as an opportunity for the former to stay in the ear of the latter. And now we wait.