The LeBron James clan suffered a huge scare on Monday when Bronny James, a son of the Los Angeles Lakers superstar, went into cardiac arrest. The medical emergency occurred during an informal workout with his University of Southern California teammates.
Luckily, the younger James was tended to in swift fashion, and he was reportedly out of the intensive care unit and in stable condition on Tuesday.
Although he may be out of the woods, there is a feeling his burgeoning basketball career is in serious jeopardy, even if he isn’t diagnosed with any sort of cardiovascular condition or structural abnormalities.
Dr. Brian Sutterer, a licensed medical doctor who specializes in orthopedics and sports medicine, has a following on YouTube for his videos that analyze injuries suffered by prominent NBA players. Sutterer said in a video he put up on Tuesday that the younger James’ basketball career could be over (h/t Sportskeeda).
“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.”
Many basketball fans will remember Hank Gathers, the talented forward for the Loyola Marymount University Lions in the late 1980s. He collapsed during a game during his senior season, and it was determined his collapse was caused by exercise-induced ventricular tachycardia. However, he continued to play, and he collapsed a second time a few months later and was pronounced dead shortly afterward.
Obviously, the younger James’ health and well-being should take precedence over his future as a basketball player.
