Is Lebron James’ Son Getting College Offers?

As uSports has previously reported, Lebron James Jr. is a really good basketball player: even Lebron James has admitted that Junior has a lot of the same characteristics as him, “He plays just like I did. He has great awareness, and he’d rather pass first and set guys up. Most kids nowadays just want to score.”

But how good is he compared to other kids his age? Well, according to FOX Sports Ohio, Lebron James Jr. is already receiving offers from colleges. And while he is immensely proud of his son, these offers do not make the all-star entirely happy: “Yeah, he’s already got some offers from colleges. It’s pretty crazy. It should be a violation. You shouldn’t be recruiting 10-year-old kids.”

Now, it is certainly not surprising that college programs are attempting to sign one of the greatest athletes in the history of the game’s son. While many will cry foul play and call for greater restrictions, this is the way the recruiting game is played now.

Programs attempt to rope kids with immense talent in at an extremely young and gullible age: college football has been the most guilty of this, as they have been known to go after eighth graders who have shown extreme promise like David Sills — he verbally committed to USC at 13, but ended up signing with West Virginia this year. And in basketball, it is much the same: for instance, Michael Avery in 2008 accepted a scholarship from Kentucky’s former coach while in the eighth grade.

As ESPN pointed out, while this is technically a violation, it is very hard for the NCAA to monitor everything: “The rules that the NCAA enforces through official channels have no impact on the recruitment pipeline’s underground, which often employs AAU coaches and other liaisons as third parties who relay information to athletes.”

In the end, this descent into madness of recruiting young children with talent to major programs should be stopped: but as long as teams are willing to commit these violations, it will continue without any type of parameters.