La La Anthony is apparently not alone in her empty-nester phase. While her only child, Kiyan is not too far in Syracuse, she’s still finding ways to stay engaged in his budding basketball career. All this while rumors of a growing romance swirl. She herself addressed those rumors now. Right after surprising her fans by opening up about her love life, her focus was back on Kiyan again. The 18-year-old is now in a competitive environment, not only vying to recreate his dad’s freshman year that ended in a championship for Syracuse, but also in a lucrative space.

If Kiyan has Carmelo Anthony’s hoops talent, he’s got La La’s hustle. Before he went to Syracuse, he was already an entrepreneur with a clothing brand and somewhat of an influencer on social media. He’s got a cousin staying with him on the Syracuse campus acting as his manager now that he’s in the NIL setting.

And since he’s repping the #7 after his dad, that Syracuse merch just went up in value. Now that official Orange merch for Kiyan is in the Syracuse NIL store. Ahead of his official NCAA debut, Kiyan’s mom is making sure you know where you can find the means to rep him.

La La shared the link to the official merch of the Syracuse NIL store on her Stories on Friday night with a fire emoji. The official pieces include #7 Orange jerseys, tees with Kiyan’s name-image-likeness, and also his #3 high school jersey from when he attended Lutheran Long Island.

La La was not prepared for her baby boy leaving the nest, Kiyan himself revealed. Since he’s started college in June, she’s dropped by the practice facility named after her ex-husband and even met her ex’s coach, Jim Boeheim.

Kiyan’s new start at Syracuse has been the family’s major focus. But there have been some side quests that fans spotted.

La La learns from mistakes in Carmelo Anthony marriage

Since her divorce from Carmelo Anthony was finalized in 2021, La La Anthony claimed she was not ready for a new romance to take her attention away from Kiyan. Now that Kiyan is a college student, perhaps La La is back in the pool again. Fans spotted a sign of that in a TikTok she posted in early July.

La La was seemingly trying to pull a man into frame in that video but we never get to see a face. It was still enough for her followers to speculate if that’s her new boyfriend. If it is, we probably won’t see her take a page out of her (ex) best friend, Larsa Pippen’s playbook to flaunt her new relationship on social media.

The BMF star sat down with Speedy Morman who asked about that little TikTok teaser. La La pretty much said those tidbits are all we’re getting. “I think it’s good to keep things private until you feel like you’re ready for the world to know about it,” she told Morman. “I feel like anytime the world gets involved too early, that’s when things get messy and messed up.”

She didn’t explicitly deny those romance rumors. However, she’s going to avoid the scrutiny for as long as she can. That, La La revealed in 2022, caused the demise of her marriage to Melo. When he was traded from Denver to the Knicks, the big New York lights on their relationship wore them down. Though the Brooklyn product was happy to be back in New York, she felt Denver was more laid back.

It looks like Kiyan may be taking lessons from his mom. He’s linked to the TikTok-famous Angel Bradley through some cryptic posts too. But he’s not making it public yet.

Just the same, La La wants to keep ‘future’ relationships private till she’s confident it can survive under the fame microscope. Until then, “Sometimes it’s nice to tease certain things. So sometimes it’s nice to [give] just a little peek, but not too much,” about “soft-launching” her new relationship status. We’ll be looking out for La La and Kiyan’s crumbs on their respective love lives for the near future.