His recruitment, though, largely played out as “don’t call us, we’ll call you” — and he eventually took visits not to basketball powers like Duke and Kentucky. Instead, he toured places where he might play more readily: Oregon, whose benefactor is Nike founder Phil Knight, the shoe company that has a strong relationship with the elder James; Ohio State, the school LeBron said he would have attended if he had been required to go to college before going to the N.B.A.; and his close-to-home school, U.S.C.
The Trojans will also have D.J. Rodman, a transfer from Washington State, whose father, Dennis, was a pop culture sensation in the ’90s. But it is more than a team of scions of basketball stars.
U.S.C. should be quite good after adding one of the top freshmen in the country, Isaiah Collier, a point guard from Marietta, Ga. He will team with Boogie Ellis, the Pac-12’s second-leading returning scorer; center Joshua Morgan, who led the conference in blocks last season; and forward Kobe Johnson, who is the conference’s leading returner in steals.
Iwuchukwu, a 7-foot-1 center, is also considered an N.B.A. prospect.
After this season, Bronny James would be eligible for the N.B.A. draft. LeBron James has often said he would like to play on an N.B.A. team with his son, and has even hinted that he wants to play with his younger son, Bryce, 16, who attends Campbell Hall School in Los Angeles.
LeBron James, 38, led the Lakers to the Western Conference finals last season, which was his 20th season in the N.B.A. In February he became the N.B.A.’s all-time leading scorer, passing Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, who had held the title for nearly 39 years.
Gina Kolata, Livia Albeck-Ripka, Adam Zagoria and Jesus Jimenez contributed reporting.
