The performance piqued West’s interest. He wanted another look, this one to confirm his gut feeling. He approached John Black and Raymond Ridder, members of the team’s public relations staff, and asked if they wanted to attend another of Bryant’s workouts. Mitch Kupchak, West’s assistant general manager, piled into West’s car, along with Black and Ridder. Bryant’s second Lakers workout figured to be more challenging. Bryant would play against Michael Cooper at Inglewood High School. Cooper, 40, had been retired from the NBA for five years, but maintained a slim, agile frame. He was a key part of the Lakers’ “Showtime” championship teams and an in-your-face defender, described by Larry Bird as the best he had ever faced. Cooper did not think much of the workout entering the gym. West had requested it, telling Cooper that he wanted to see how a high school kid named Kobe would fare against him. Cooper learned that Bryant was actually Joe Bryant’s son only a couple of hours before squaring off against him. Cooper and Joe Bryant had matched up before in games. “I almost had a flashback,” Cooper said. “Now, if I would have done that, it would have been a different thing.”
He arrived at a dark gym, almost gloomy. No matter. Bryant lit Cooper up.
They spent nearly the whole session playing one-on-one. Cooper played defense the bulk of the time. He tried using his physicality over Bryant. Bryant scored at will. He unleashed a full repertoire of fadeaway jump shots and drives to the baskets with reverse layups and dunks.
“He was playing like he had just graduated from college, twenty-one, twenty-two years old, and I think that was the most impressive thing about it,” Cooper said. “All of us were very, very impressed with him and Jerry has that innate ability to see beyond what other people see at the moment and obviously, he saw greatness.”
West turned to Black and Ridder about 25 minutes into the workout. “OK, I’ve seen enough,” he said. “Let’s go. He’s better than anyone we have on our team right now.” The trio rose from their seats. “Best workout I’ve ever seen,” West continued.
West walked past Cooper on his way out. “I thought you were supposed to guard him,” West quipped.
The group returned to the Inglewood Forum. “We’ve got to do everything we can to get this guy,” West said during the drive back, almost to himself.
•••
That Jerry West also wanted Bryant only strengthened John Nash’s resolve that the Nets would be mistaken in passing on him. He only had to convince John Calipari of the same. “We’re holding the cards here,” Nash told Calipari. “We’re holding the aces. He doesn’t have the ability to go back and say he wants to go to college because he lost his eligibility once he hired an agent. He’s not going to go to Europe. They’re not going to pay him anywhere near what we can.”
He told Calipari of the proposed deal with Divac between the Hornets and the Lakers—the same one that West previously floated by them.
“Look, John, you have a five-year contract,” Nash said. “They’re not going to fire you after the first year. And you’re going to be allowed to make a mistake. But you don’t want to pass on a potential superstar.”
Nash saw Calipari contemplating his options. “What if we move down to like ten and we pick up another piece of the puzzle?” he asked. The Indiana Pacers held that 10th pick and were looking to trade up. Nash believed that Calipari would have felt more comfortable drafting Bryant in that spot. Nash phoned Donnie Walsh, Indiana’s president, but could not agree on a trade’s parameters.
Calipari and Nash walked into a dinner with the full ownership group at around 6 p.m. Calipari addressed the group. “If Kerry Kittles is on the board at number eight, we’re going to take Kerry Kittles,” he announced. “If he’s not at the board at number eight, we’re going to take Kobe Bryant.” Two owners immediately left the room, disgruntled that Bryant was still being considered at that point. Nash had worked the phones all day. He knew the likely draft picks of the first seven teams. Both Kittles and Bryant would be available to them. “When I heard that, I was devastated,” Nash said. “I think David Falk scared the bejesus out of [Calipari]. I really do. If David Falk hadn’t been so insistent on us taking Kittles, I think Kobe would have been drafted by the Nets and John would probably still be the coach. Who knows? Maybe I would have even survived.”
•••
The 1996 draft is regarded as one of the deepest in the league’s history. Its results shaped the NBA for the next several years. The class featured three eventual MVPs (Bryant, Allen Iverson, and Steve Nash) and seven other future All-Stars. But it took a confluence of strategy, maneuvering, and missteps for Bryant—who evolved into the most talented player in that talented draft—to plunge all the way to the 13th pick.
NBA commissioner David Stern walked to the podium on June 26, 1996 and announced that the draft and clock would start with the Philadelphia 76ers. John Lucas had lost his coaching job with the franchise after a 64-loss season. They maintained the inside track on evaluating Bryant because of his local proximity. Their scout Tony DiLeo had even trained Bryant in preparation for his draft workouts at Joe Bryant’s behest. DiLeo had known Kobe Bryant for years and had once introduced a ninth-grade Bryant to Michael Jordan. “Kobe, the way he talked, the way he acted, he tried to mimic Michael’s movements and speech patterns,” DiLeo remembered. “You could tell he really looked up to Michael. He wanted to emulate him.” Bryant impressed DiLeo with his relentlessness during their sessions. In one drill, DiLeo instructed Bryant to convert 300 shots without missing three in a row. Bryant struggled with it at the beginning, enough to irk him. He conquered the drill within a couple of days. DiLeo pushed for the organization to take Bryant first overall. “Here’s a special player,” DiLeo said. “He’s right in our backyard.” Brad Greenberg, Philadelphia’s general manager, wanted to draft Allen Iverson, a diminutive, spirited guard from Georgetown. DiLeo then suggested trading Jerry Stackhouse for a lottery selection and using that pick on Bryant. “Because of some years where the team had traded away a high pick for a veteran, it was presented to me that we needed to keep the most recent high pick, Stackhouse, and see how he was going to develop,” Greenberg wrote in an email. “That factored some into draft day strategy. Doing something with Jerry would have been the only way the team could have moved down in the first round to position for Kobe. In retrospect, it would have been a great move to do that and have both Allen and Kobe. But at the time, it wasn’t something we focused on.”
Iverson reinvigorated the franchise. Fans can only dream, however, of a backcourt featuring Iverson and Bryant. Philadelphia went on to trade Stackhouse shortly afterward, when he and Iverson failed to coalesce.
Toronto and Isiah Thomas possessed the second overall pick. Again, a predraft phone call, Thomas said, dissuaded him from selecting a high school player. “We had scouted Kobe and we were going to take Kobe at two and I got a call from Joe Bryant, Kobe’s father, and I got a call from Jerry West,” Thomas said. West explained the proposed deal with Charlotte and Joe Bryant asserted that he did not want his son playing in Canada, Thomas said. “Going to the Lakers was great for Kobe. They had a lot of endorsements riding on it, and so I told Jerry and I told [Lakers scout] Ronnie Lester that we weren’t going to take Kobe and we would take Marcus Camby.”
The Vancouver Grizzlies had the next selection and used it on Shareef Abdur-Rahim, a forward from California. Vancouver coveted a frontcourt player in the draft, recalled Larry Riley, the team’s director of player personnel. “We were sold that that was the direction for us to go as a franchise,” Riley said. “Kobe was going to be a guard and we felt that we could get guards. As you look back on it and who’s had the better career, it’s obvious Kobe did. Did we make a decision that wasn’t the best? Probably so. We did make a decision that was a good one.”
Mike Dunleavy’s Milwaukee Bucks picked fourth. He had feverishly worked the phones before the draft. As a player, Dunleavy had teamed with Joe Bryant and Darryl Dawkins in Philadelphia. He turned to coaching afterward, ev
entually serving as Milwaukee’s head coach and vice president of basketball operations. Dunleavy had a scout in Philadelphia who spoke highly of Bryant. But he originally wanted to draft Ray Allen, a smooth-shooting guard from Connecticut. Then Dunleavy erected what amounted to a pyramid scheme. He agreed to select Stephon Marbury fourth for Milwaukee and trade him to the Timberwolves for Allen, who would be selected fifth by the Timberwolves. The Bucks would receive a future first-round selection in the deal. Kevin Garnett and Marbury knew each other from the summer basketball circuit and wanted to play together. Kevin McHale decided not to tempt fate by selecting high school players in consecutive years. “We got one high school kid who was phenomenal,” McHale said. “Are we going to run our luck and try to go for two or are we going to go for a guy who’s a little more established? I just remember looking at Kobe, liking him a lot, and thinking, Man, we just went through this. We probably should have kept pushing our luck, but we didn’t and took Steph.” Dunleavy’s plan would then take off. He wanted to trade Allen to the Celtics for Boston’s sixth pick and another selection in a future draft. He had another potential deal with the Nets and Calipari in place for the sixth pick and another future pick for their eighth selection. Dunleavy said he would have taken Bryant with the eighth selection and departed with the extra three picks. He even told Joe Bryant that Kobe could live at home with him and his teenage son, Mike Jr., who would one day play in the NBA. Herb Kohl, Milwaukee’s owner, quashed the idea.
“I don’t get this,” Kohl said, according to Dunleavy. “All I’ve been hearing all year long is about how Ray Allen is great. Next thing I know, now you want to trade down and take these picks and take this high school guy? What happens if the Clippers take him at number seven?” Dunleavy said he would take Kerry Kittles instead. But Arn Tellem declined Dunleavy’s request for Bryant to work out (and everyone else’s) once the Lakers came into focus as Bryant’s potential destination. “Well, if you can’t work him out, you can’t pick him,” Kohl said.
The Boston Celtics picked fifth and did work Bryant out prior to the draft. “He was outstanding in that workout,” said Rick Weitzman, Boston’s head scout. “But back then, the thinking was that high school kids, because it was so new for them to come right into the NBA, everybody thought that it would take a couple of years for them to get acclimated and be productive NBA players.” Boston opted for Antoine Walker, a forward from Kentucky.
The Clippers, picking seventh, faced the same predicament. They had worked out Bryant and one drill in particular stood out in Bill Fitch’s mind. The drill involved Bryant hurrying to make as many baskets as he could per minute. “He did it without even hitting the floor,” said Fitch, the Clippers’ coach. “The best workout that anybody ever had. He was just too young and it was the wrong club for him at the time.” The Clippers took Memphis’s Lorenzen Wright. The selection was a surprise to Wright. His agent scrambled to retrieve him from the bathroom, so he would be present at the announcement.
Wright was not the only one in need of a restroom at the time. Nash’s stomach churned with the disclosure of Wright as the seventh selection. Kerry Kittles was still available. With the Nets on the clock, Sonny Vaccaro, an Adidas executive and a Bryant family confidant, silently prayed that they would not draft Bryant. As promised, Calipari selected Kittles with the eighth selection. “This pick isn’t about instant gratification,” Calipari told reporters. “It’s the best thing that we can do.” Jayson Williams, the Nets’ All-Star center, told the Record that he had expected the Nets to take Bryant, “because we had him in for about eighteen million visits,” he said. “I was already figuring we’d have to put Nickelodeon on the TV in the locker room.”
Time would reveal the mistakes made with the next four selections. Dallas took Samaki Walker. Indiana chose Erick Dampier. “If you’re saying that I wasn’t looking for high school kids in those days, you’re right,” said Donnie Walsh, Indiana’s president. “I didn’t think they could come into the league without developing for two or three years. The truth is, I was wrong on that.” Golden State picked Todd Fuller. “There were some circumstances in that we had [guard Latrell] Sprewell at the time and he was actually good for [coach] Rick Adelman and Adelman was good for Spree,” said Dave Twardzik, Golden State’s general manager. Adelman left Golden State the next year. Sprewell, in a practice, famously choked Adelman’s replacement, P. J. Carlesimo. The Cavaliers plucked Vitaly Potapenko with the 12th pick. Cleveland center Brad Daugherty had recently announced his retirement because of lingering back pain. “I definitely wanted size in the draft,” said Wayne Embry, Cleveland’s general manager. “As it turned out later, Zydrunas Ilgauskas was available and we got him. I could have easily taken Kobe and drafted Zydrunas.” The irony is that Potapenko played only a couple of seasons in Cleveland. Ilgauskas, taken 20th overall in the same draft, stabilized Cleveland’s frontcourt for years.
“I always thought a great trivia question was going to be, Who were the twelve players that were taken ahead of this future Hall of Famer?” Downer said.
So with some twists, turns, coincidence, and dumb luck, Bryant remained available when the Hornets selected 13th overall. David Stern walked to the draft’s podium. “With the thirteenth pick in the 1996 NBA draft, the Charlotte Hornets select Kobe Bryant from Lower Merion High School in Pennsylvania,” he said.
Bryant rose and hugged Pamela Bryant. Joe Bryant leaned into Downer. “It’s not over yet,” he said. “Something’s about to go down.”
He told Downer of the proposed deal between the Lakers and the Hornets. “[The Nets] could’ve drafted him,” West said. “He would’ve played there. He had no choice. I was shocked that he didn’t go there, to be honest.” The proposal snagged when Vlade Divac threatened to retire from the NBA if it went through. Divac had embedded himself within the Los Angeles community and was a fan favorite. He did not want to leave the city. “Vlade Divac is one of the greatest people—nicest, most humble people I’ve ever seen,” West said. “He was devastated. It was an ugly time.” West tried assuring Bob Bass that Divac would eventually acquiesce. “They wanted us to take the gamble and do that,” Bass said. “We weren’t going to do that.”
The standoff lasted nearly two tension-filled weeks. Not only did Bryant’s acquisition hinge on Divac’s accepting the deal, but also on whether the Lakers could land Shaquille O’Neal. In a selfless act, Divac finally relented. “I played basketball because I loved the game,” he said. “I didn’t play because of the money. Money is there. If you’re good enough, you’ll make the money. But for me to go somewhere just to play because I have a contract wasn’t fun for me…And then I realized I’m going to screw the deal with Kobe and Shaq and [Lakers owner] Dr. Jerry Buss and went to Charlotte for a couple days and I said, ‘I’ll give it a chance.’ ”
Bass won the league’s Executive of the Year award in 1996, in large part because of the trade. The move landed Charlotte an established center, upped their wins from 41 a season earlier to 54, and nudged Shaquille O’Neal out of the Eastern Conference when he accepted the Lakers’ offer for seven years and $121 million. “You’ve got to remember that twelve other teams passed on him when we took him,” Bass said of trading Bryant. “Now think about that for a minute. Twelve teams passed on him and he refused to work out for us. If we brought him in for a workout, it might have been different, it might not have been different. But why didn’t another team take him if they knew he was that good?”
Danny Ainge’s Phoenix Suns selected 15th in 1996. Phoenix had worked out Bryant, and Ainge predicted he would be a wonderful NBA player. Ainge, once a teammate of McHale’s in Boston, spent the day trying to secure a better selection. “We were doing all we could,” he said. “We thought we had a good chance at getting Kobe at fifteen.” Phoenix instead settled on Steve Nash, a little-known point guard born in South Africa and raised in Canada. Nash went on to win two MVPs. The Portland Trail Blazers picked two slots later and took Jermaine O’Neal. O’Neal, from Sou
th Carolina, had also declared for the draft out of high school. He would become the final player taken in that draft who developed into an All-Star. Bob Whitsitt, the same executive who had plucked Shawn Kemp in Seattle, took O’Neal for Portland. “As a franchise, we were absolutely committed to try and develop Jermaine on and off the court,” Whitsitt said. “Sometimes, if you throw these young guys into the fire too quickly, you can shatter them mentally and emotionally. The basketball part almost becomes the easier part.” Bass had said O’Neal was nowhere near being NBA-ready. “He wrote the most vicious article about me,” O’Neal said. “I’ve never met this guy a day before in my life. He never attended a game of mine, and he talked about me like he knew me personally. I told my mother; she was bitter and emotional about it. I said, ‘Mom, don’t worry about it. I’ll take care of it.’ ”
As the draft closed, John Nash stood inside the tunnel that led onto the court. Rod Thorn, the NBA’s executive vice president of basketball operations, walked up to him. Thorn had drafted Michael Jordan to Chicago as the Bulls’ general manager. He was also close to Jerry West and was keen on West’s affinity for Bryant. “Didn’t have the courage to take the high school kid, huh?” Thorn teased in his West Virginia drawl.
“No, I had the courage,” Nash responded. “We all didn’t have the courage.”
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