By Shams Charania, Lukas Weese and Sam Vecenie

Bronny James, the son of NBA superstar LeBron James, is expected to stay in the 2024 NBA Draft, league sources said.

James, who suffered a cardiac arrest last July before returning to the court for his freshman season at USC, has been fully cleared to play by the NBA’s Fitness to Play Panel and will participate in all pre-draft activities, beginning with the NBA Draft Combine this week.

While not considered a top prospect — James was not included in The Athletic’s post-lottery mock draft Sunday — his surname and journey back to the court following a serious health scare make him one of the most notable players in this year’s draft class.

There’s also the added intrigue of whether James and his father could become teammates. LeBron has expressed a desire to end his career playing alongside his son.

The younger James collapsed after suffering a cardiac arrest during a USC team workout in July. A family spokesperson said a congenital heart defect caused the incident. Doctors cleared him to return to practice four months later, and he made his college debut on Dec. 10 against Long Beach State. He appeared in USC’s final 25 games, starting six and averaging 4.8 points, 2.8 rebounds and 2.1 assists in 19.3 minutes.

Questions surrounding his future accelerated when his college coach at USC, Andy Enfield, left for the head-coaching vacancy at SMU in March.

James, 19, declared for the NBA Draft on April 5. He also entered the transfer portal to maintain flexibility as he worked out for NBA teams.

Following the USC coaching change, LeBron said that Bronny had “some tough decisions to make” regarding his future.

“At the end of the day, Bronny’s his own man,” LeBron said in April.

The younger James’ decision comes ahead of a big one for his father, who has to decide whether to opt into his $51.4 million player option for 2024-25 by June 29. Team sources said last month the Lakers are open to the prospect of helping LeBron fulfill his dream of playing with his son by potentially drafting him.

LeBron declined to answer a question about whether he played his final game as a Laker after Los Angeles was eliminated in five games by the Denver Nuggets in the first round of the NBA playoffs.

The NBA Draft takes place June 26-27.

Bronny projects as a 3-and-D guard who plays hard, makes good decisions on offense, does the little things, passes well, leads the fast break off defensive rebounds, fills transition lanes and attacks the rim when he gets a chance. He is a terrific defensive player who fights at the point of attack and has the length and foot speed to stick with most guards.

James’ offense is a work in progress. He struggled to generate any half-court paint touches this year and isn’t much of a pull-up shooter yet. He made only 27 percent of his 3s last season, though he looked more confident taking them at USC and has more shooting talent than his percentage shows. — Sam Vecenie, NBA Draft writer

Do Bronny’s measurements at the combine matter?

We finally got confirmation on how big James is exactly. He measured at 6-foot-1 1/2 without shoes with a 6-7 1/4 wingspan and an 8-2 1/2 standing reach Monday. That’s much smaller than the 6-4 height at which he was listed while playing for USC, but it’s important to remember that colleges list players’ heights in shoes. While the Trojans added an extra inch to Bronny’s height, they didn’t drastically oversell it. On top of that, NBA teams were working under the assumption that James was in the ballpark of 6-2 anyway.

James’ standing reach puts him much more in the ballpark of point guard as opposed to that of a combo or shooting guard. Past players to post an 8-2 1/2 standing reach at the combine include Bruce Brown, Collin Sexton, Terry Rozier and Avery Bradley. James is a bit stronger and stouter than most of those players. — Vecenie

How much does shooting-drill showing help him?

James’ success during a shooting drill Monday does serve as a reminder for evaluators that James has potential to shoot the ball despite his percentages. Having said that, as I wrote about a month ago, “He showed much more shooting potential as a high-school player than he did in college. There is nothing inherently wrong with his mechanics. Perhaps he was out of rhythm after not being cleared to play during the offseason.”

Bronny James caught FIRE in the #NBACombine… no misses in sight 👀🎯 pic.twitter.com/0YkGfbfBF8

— NBA Draft (@NBADraft) May 14, 2024

NBA teams have not gone into this process believing that James is unable to shoot the basketball. That’s the part of his offensive game they actually have the most confidence in translating. Additionally, these shots are just a drop in the bucket. Any of the hundreds of scouts and executives who were at Nike Hoop Summit last year saw James shoot a sample that was a multiple many times over of the number he took at the combine. And of course, the shots he took at game speed this past season are still the ones that matter most. While this might have shifted a couple of minds, I don’t know that it moved the needle all that much. — Vecenie

What about his vertical leap?

It’s nice to confirm what people already thought, but again, evaluators were working under the assumption that James would test exceedingly well athletically. This one probably did not move the needle much for James positively, but confirming pre-conceived notions is valuable. — Vecenie

(Photo: Brian Rothmuller / Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)

In the end, Kylian Mbappe’s farewell to the Parc des Princes echoed his time at Paris Saint-Germain.

There was one more goal, another trophy and one step closer to another record — the first player in French football history to win the top-flight Golden Boot in six consecutive seasons.

There was a tifo put together by the club’s ultras in the Auteuil stand before kick-off to honour his legacy — an image of his trademark celebration, arms folded. There was also a banner, stating: “Child of the Parisian banlieue, you became a PSG legend.” 

But this game was not a full celebration of his seven years in Paris. Yes, there were songs lauding him, but also a few boos and whistles before kick-off when his name was read out. The night would end with a trophy lift but also in a defeat to Toulouse, only PSG’s second loss of the campaign. Luis Enrique labelled it their worst performance of the season.

😳 Les sifflets du Parc des Princes à l’annonce du nom de Kylian Mbappé.#PSGTFC pic.twitter.com/FOhSczZEPQ

— Prime Video Sport France (@PVSportFR) May 12, 2024

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Considering the impact Mbappe has made on PSG, his send-off was underwhelming. The main focus of the evening was on the title win rather than Mbappe’s goodbye. PSG celebrated their 12th Ligue 1 triumph, an achievement that brings clear daylight at the summit of French football, now two clear of Marseille and Saint-Etienne. It was also the club’s 50th major trophy. It was greeted with a glitzy party, orchestrated by celebrated Parisian composer Thomas Roussel. 

Mbappe’s announcement — made in a four-minute video on Friday via his social media channels — was just too short notice for much else. There was no concurrent statement or post from the club. They were caught by surprise. 

But Mbappe could not depart PSG without clarification before the club’s final home game of the season. The weeks of innuendos about his future could not drag on beyond that. He has not revealed his destination, which all in Paris expect to be Real Madrid, but he did confirm that, this time, it really was goodbye.

How he would be received by the Parc des Princes, for the final time, was always going to be a point of focus. Would supporters cheer him? On the face of it, not hailing the club’s greatest goalscorer might seem outlandish, but this is PSG and this is Mbappe, and the last seven years of off-field drama were hardly likely to have no impact.

His goodbye video had hints of that; Mbappe thanked nearly everyone at the club, including all of his former coaches. There was no reference, though, to club president Nasser Al-Khelaifi, nor former sporting director Antero Henrique.

Kylian Mbappe and the PSG squad celebrate their Ligue 1 title win (Franck Fife/AFP via Getty Images)

This past season alone will have contributed to that. After informing the club that he wished to leave at the end of his contract, instead of triggering an option to extend it by a further year, he was told by PSG that he had to extend his deal or be sold. He was then unceremoniously dumped into the ‘bomb squad’, the group of transfer-listed undesirables, and omitted from the club’s pre-season tour of Japan and South Korea. 

It was just the latest episode of the Mbappe-PSG soap opera. In 2022, he seemed set to sign for Real Madrid but did a late U-turn and signed a lucrative contract. A year previously, the summer was dominated by speculation about his future. So much of his spell at the club has, to an extent, felt like one very long goodbye. That can be tiresome.

The brilliance of Kylian Mbappe

Mbappe may well have been aware of that. On Friday, after his announcement video, Mbappe attended a barbecue with the club’s ultras at the Parc des Princes. From the outside, it looked like an act of goodwill before his departure. Last season, Mbappe was part of a team that was heckled as they received their medals for the Ligue 1 title, but he avoided the worst of it and his relationship has been rebuilt over time.

Throughout this season, he has not been heckled by the ultras, despite the off-field speculation. On Sunday, there were some loud whistles before kick-off but after full time, during the trophy lift, he was afforded a triple name call from matchday announcer Michel Montana. There was also the tifo after the warm-up. Mbappe went over to greet the ultras and watched as the tifo was raised in front of him. It was accompanied by Mbappe chants.

A giant tifo depicting Mbappe is raised before kick-off last night (Miguel Medina/AFP via Getty Images)

That was fitting because, despite everything, PSG will still remember him as their best-ever Parisian. He was born in Bondy, on the outskirts of Paris, and returned to the capital to break a whole host of records for the club, all before his 26th birthday.

His goal against Toulouse took him to 256 for the club, extending his position as the club’s all-time leading goalscorer. For PSG, he also has the most goals in Europe, the most hat-tricks, the most ‘doubles’ and the most goals in a single game (five). He has helped France win the World Cup, scored in successive World Cup finals, including one hat-trick, has won the tournament’s Golden Boot, and has gone on to become the national team captain. 

That is his sporting legacy and fans will remember him for all of that, too. His goal on Sunday was a prime example, with a burst of incomprehensible pace, combined with sublime control and an ice-cool finish — but he also played in an era at PSG that won’t be remembered as favourably.

Mbappe celebrates his last league goal for PSG, against Toulouse (Franck Fife/AFP via Getty Images)

It has been a time of politics, player power and, fundamentally, unfulfilled ambitions for the club in the Champions League. It is a period that ended with disillusionment, a sentiment defined by fan protests last summer, which is now beginning to dissipate as the club pivot away from superstar players towards a new era and a new identity.

Over time, Mbappe will surely be remembered more fondly, as arguably their best-ever talent and a club icon. 

Right now, though, PSG and their supporters are impatient to usher in a new chapter.

Fans will look back with fondness at his greatness but, as Sunday illustrated, memories of the off-the-field noise will linger. The sentiment that greeted his farewell is not entirely affectionate despite all that has been achieved.

(Top photo: Franck Fife/AFP via Getty Images)

SAN DIEGO — Kyle Higashioka spent seven seasons crouching behind home plate for Aroldis Chapman, Gerrit Cole and other pitchers with rare arms and uncommon velocity, but in his first season with the Padres, the veteran catcher has found himself marveling at what feels like a true anomaly.

Robert Suarez, San Diego’s soft-spoken, hard-throwing closer, is spamming high heat like no other pitcher in the majors. His combined fastball usage has jumped almost 30 percentage points from last season. He has gone to his four-seamer, which averages 98.5 mph, just over 80 percent of the time. He has mixed in his sinker (97.9 mph average) on close to 11 percent of his pitches. And in one remarkable eight-game span last month, Suarez reached back for 79 fastballs in a row.

“People don’t even do that in high school,” said Higashioka, who played prep ball against Cole more than a decade before the two Southern California natives became batterymates on the New York Yankees. “It’s pretty crazy.”

It would be even more peculiar if Suarez, 33, were having limited success with such an approach. But the Venezuelan right-hander is neither stubborn nor unimaginative. Suarez owns a 0.52 ERA across 16 appearances. In an otherwise shaky Padres bullpen, he is tied for the major-league lead in games finished (16), saves (12) and saves of more than three outs (three). Opponents are hitting .250 (1-for-4) against his plus changeup and just .093 (4-for-43) against a four-seamer that has warranted the heavy usage.

“It’s got the ride, the characteristics, and he’s pitching at the top of the zone,” said Los Angeles Dodgers manager Dave Roberts. “You know what’s coming, but a lot of the swings, (batters) just can’t catch up to it. I don’t like when he comes into the game.”

Why has a frequently seen fastball been so unhittable?

“I’ve been helped a lot by (Padres pitching coach) Ruben Niebla in using all sorts of analytics towards my pitches, primarily the spin rate,” Suarez said recently through team interpreter Pedro Gutiérrez. “That’s allowed me to execute a little bit more.”

Saturday, hours after Suarez threw 11 four-seamers, two sinkers and nothing else in a perfect inning against the Dodgers, Niebla explained in more detail.

Suarez has acquired a practical understanding of spin efficiency, Niebla said, since San Diego signed him out of Japan’s top professional league after the 2021 season. While there is no proven way to significantly boost raw spin rate without the aid of banned foreign substances, Suarez has increased the active spin — a Statcast metric that measures spin that contributes to movement — on his four-seamer from 93.7 percent in 2022 to 95.9 percent this season. Since the end of 2023, the pitch has gained almost an inch of average vertical movement, the “ride” Roberts mentioned.

“If he starts working inside the ball a little bit too much, his four-seamer starts running and we’re going to lose spin efficiency,” Niebla said. “If it cuts a little bit, we’re going to lose spin efficiency. Right now, he seems to be clicking. Like, metrically, he’s behind the ball and really getting that pure backspin.”

Calibrating Suarez’s delivery has been key. Early in spring training, Niebla noticed that the pitcher was moving well down the mound with his lower half but also that his torso was “a little bit behind.” Suarez struggled in his first few Cactus League appearances, even as he and Niebla worked to address the root cause. It wasn’t until Suarez’s final spring outing in Arizona that Niebla felt the reliever had fully synced up his timing.

“Even when he went to Korea (for the season opener against the Dodgers) … I was still a little bit nervous, and then it was good,” Niebla said Saturday at Petco Park. “Then he came out here. And then you just track — I’m just tracking. But right now, I feel it’s pretty simple where I don’t even have to talk to him. It’s just like, ‘You’re in rhythm.’ I don’t even tell him that he is in rhythm.”

Higashioka played six seasons with Chapman, who still holds the Guinness World Record for the fastest major-league pitch, a 105.8 mph ball thrown to Tony Gwynn Jr. at Petco Park in 2010. “He’s pretty high-effort,” Higashioka said. “You could tell he was using every ounce of his strength to get everything behind it.” Suarez, meanwhile, possesses what approaches the textbook definition of “easy gas.”

“Sometimes,” said Padres starting catcher Luis Campusano, “it almost teleports into my glove.”

Those who have spent time around Suarez point out something else.

“He’s got really good command,” Roberts said.

“The first bullpen I caught, I was amazed at the command,” Higashioka said. “It was just, like, almost pinpoint. And for a guy to be throwing 100 with above-average command, I mean, that’s pretty special.”

“There’s a combination of being able to hit 100 but being able to hit 100 when this guy’s putting it to the top of the zone and then goes to the outer half of the zone, and all of a sudden there’s a two-seamer that he can lock you up on,” Niebla said. “It’s like, ‘Oh, s—, was that it or was that the other one?’”

During his run of 79 consecutive fastballs, Suarez threw 74 four-seamers and five sinkers. He allowed no runs, two singles and two walks. (The only run off Suarez this season came March 28 when Michael Conforto struck a changeup for a solo homer.) He recorded only five strikeouts, but he induced consistent weak contact and kept hitters off balance by varying the speed of his delivery.

Sometime around the 40th or 50th fastball in a row, a number of Suarez’s teammates began talking among themselves: Something different was happening.

“I think we were all just kind of monitoring,” Higashioka said. “We noticed that he wasn’t really throwing anything else but he was still dominating. It was pretty cool.”

“I know that fastball usage is high, but it’s been his best weapon. It is his best weapon,” Campusano, Suarez’s primary batterymate, said on April 22 before a game at Coors Field. “So, kind of just mixing up the whole times to the plate, it makes it really that much more effective. I feel very confident just using it until someone can prove they’re gonna put a good swing on it.

“You know 100’s coming. You just don’t know where it’s coming.”

Robert Suárez 100mph ⛽️⛽️ pic.twitter.com/ZMSQtDHInk

— Rob Friedman (@PitchingNinja) May 7, 2024

A prudent competitor, of course, never reveals too much. Several hours after Campusano spoke, the catcher called for a 1-2 changeup instead of what would have been Suarez’s 80th straight fastball. Sean Bouchard fouled it off. Then, against the next pitch, the Colorado Rockies outfielder doubled.

It was the lone extra-base hit Suarez had surrendered this season with his fastball. Now, three weeks later, it still is. And Suarez has only increased his usage of that pitch. So far in May, he is throwing the four-seamer nearly 90 percent of the time. Hitters this month are 0-for-14 against it.

“It’s like, this is my strength,” said Niebla, who maintains that Suarez continues to work between games on his changeup and cutter/slider, a pitch he has yet to throw in a game this year. “As a reliever, you got to use it.”

Since the pitch-tracking era began in 2008, only a dozen pitchers have thrown a four-seamer, a sinker or a cutter with at least 90 percent of their pitches (minimum 500 total pitches). Mariano Rivera, widely recognized as the greatest closer of all time, leads the way at 98.5 percent; his famous cutter comprised 87.6 percent of his pitches during that span.

Across the past 16 seasons, no one threw a four-seamer or sinker more than 86.7 percent of the time. In 2024, Suarez (68.3 percent over his big-league career) is at 91.3 percent. The only pitcher throwing non-cutter fastballs more often this season is former Padres reliever Tim Hill, and the left-hander’s average four-seamer is 8 mph slower than that of Suarez, who has logged 13 pitches of at least 100 mph.

There may come a time when opponents’ adjustments or other factors prompt Suarez to dial back the extreme fastball reliance. For now, who knows when his next off-speed pitch will come: One of baseball’s more automatic closers entered Sunday having thrown 32 consecutive fastballs.

(Top photo of Robert Suarez: Michael Reaves / Getty Images)