Latest on Bronny James

While it’s too soon to say what the future holds for USC commit Bronny James regarding basketball, a noted sports medicine doctor suggested his career may be over.

James, the son of Lakers star LeBron James, went into cardiac arrest during a workout at USC and was rushed to the hospital. He was moved out of the ICU shortly thereafter and listed in stable condition.

Dr. Brian Sutterer, who analyzes NBA player injuries on his popular YouTube channel, spoke about Bronny and a potential return to basketball.

“There are some causes of cardiac arrest that you find the exact cause, and it still isn’t necessarily safe to return to sports because the risk is so high of having another cardiac arrest and potentially dying,” Sutterer said. “Some of these conditions, like hypertrophic cardiomyopathy or the anomalous coronary arteries like we saw Sharif O’Neill have, can be treated or repaired best you can with surgical intervention, but obviously that’s going to put Bronny out of playing for a really long time.

“… If they don’t find an exact cause and you don’t really know what happened. And you have to have that discussion of what exactly are the risks of going back out there and playing. Extremely serious situation we’re dealing with, then legitimately something that affects the rest of his career depending on what we discover and depending on what they have to do about it…My thoughts go out to Bronny and the rest of his family. Thankfully they had good medical staff that were able to save his life.”

James, 18, is the second USC freshman basketball player to have suffered a cardiac event during a workout in a little more than a year. The same happened to Trojans center Vince Iwuchukwu, who was able to return to the court six months after collapsing at a practice last summer. He was revived on-site by USC trainers, who used an automated external defibrillator.

Iwuchukwu was at first told he would never play basketball again. But doctors reversed course and he now plays with a battery-powered pulse generator in his chest, the purpose being to constantly monitor his heart rate.

As for James, two cardiologists who spoke to the LA Times suggested that the fact he was moved out of ICU quickly was a promising development.

“Even for a young, healthy athlete, being out of the ICU already is pretty good,” Dr. Cheng-Han Chen, an interventional cardiologist and medical director of the structural heart disease program at MemorialCare Saddleback Medical Center, told the Times.

Neither of the cardiologists who spoke to the Times treated James.

The Times also reported the following:

“Los Angeles Fire Department paramedics were called to the Galen Center, where USC practices, at 9:26 a.m. Monday for a medical emergency, according to a department spokeswoman. Bronny James lost consciousness and was taken ‘Code 3, lights and sirens’ to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center shortly after the ambulance arrived, according to a source who was not authorized to speak about the situation publicly.”

Pictures surfaced of LeBron James arriving at the hospital on Tuesday. Bryce James, Bronny’s younger brother, also posted a picture of the two together on social media.