Bryce James to Take Redshirt Year, Arizona HC Talks What’s Next for LeBron’s Son in Video

Arizona men’s basketball coach Tommy Lloyd confirmed Tuesday that Bryce James, son of Los Angeles Lakers star LeBron James, will redshirt his freshman season with the Wildcats.

“The redshirting decision was just a long play, to give Bryce the most options in his career as his career unfolds,” Lloyd told Chancellor Johnson.

“I have real strong belief that Bryce will be a contributor at Arizona in the near future. He’s really shown a lot of progress, not only learning our system but just physically maturing.”

James, who hasn’t yet made an appearance for the Wildcats, won’t turn 19 years old until June 14. He was ranked by 247Sports as three-star prospect when he joined the program as a member of the class of 2025.

“One of the things I don’t think people understand is, he was kind of a year behind, age-wise, his class,” Lloyd told Johnson. “And when you’re a year behind your natural age class, we know some of these kids are a year or two older… Part of the thinking was, let’s slow it down and let Bryce’s physical development catch up with his peers. And it really has.

“And we love having Bryce around. You know what I’ll say about Bryce is, he’s a normal person, a normal kid. He’s a great teammate. He draws no extra attention to himself. That’s all from the outside, those people do it.”

Lloyd first talked about the possibility of James redshirting the season after the Wildcats’ third game of the campaign back in November.

He indicated at the time that James would be getting limited minutes if NCAA basketball, like NCAA football, allowed players to compete in a limited number of games before impacting their eligibility.

“You know, it’s tough. Puts you in a tough situation,” Lloyd said in November. “You play Bryce in a game like this for three minutes, it burns a year of eligibility.

“I wish it was easier. I wish there was a set number of games you could play a guy, like they have in football. I think that would make a lot of sense, for some of these kids. But we don’t, so I can only operate with the rules that we currently have. Because I want Bryce to have the best college basketball career, the most options in his college basketball career, long-term, whatever that looks like.”

Arizona has climbed to the top of the AP men’s poll rankings with a 22-0 start to the season.

If James returns for a second season with the Wildcats, he’ll hope the potential NBA draft departures of players like Koa Peat, Brayden Burries and Jaden Bradley after this season will create space in Lloyd’s rotation next season.