The high school basketball world will feature a game near and dear to LeBron James’ heart on Saturday night. St. Vincent-St. Mary, the high school in Akron where he became a household name, will take on Sierra Canyon, the Los Angeles high school where James’ eldest son, Bronny, is a promising freshman hooper.
The game will be televised on ESPN3, but LeBron still wants to be in attendance. The only potential problem is that the teams will face off at Nationwide Arena in Columbus, Ohio as part of the Ohio Scholastic Play-By-Play Classic, but seeing as how LeBron James is LeBron James, that’s not much of an issue.
According to Dave McMenamin of ESPN, James charted a flight to make it out to Columbus for the game — the Lakers have an off day on Saturday and play the Hawks in Atlanta on Sunday. As such, he’ll be able to see Bronny and Zaire Wade take the floor for the first time this season, something he said after Friday’s win over the Miami Heat that he’s wanted to do all year.
“If you ask me what’s been the only sucky thing about this season so far is that my son has played like six games into his freshman year and I haven’t seen one,” James said, according to McMenamin. “I love what I do. I don’t take this for granted. This is a dream come true. But missing my son, you know Bron Jr., missing [my other son] Bryce’s first game the other day when we left for Orlando, his first game of the season. Missing my daughter at gymnastics and things of that nature, and I understand the business, but it sucks.”
Sierra Canyon sits at 7-0 on the year and, according to MaxPreps’ high school hoops rankings, is the No. 1 program in the nation. Their games have been pretty hot commodities this year, something that would have been the case on Saturday even if the King wasn’t going to be in attendance.
