Charlotte Hornets: The Pick That Never Was
High school players were still an unproven commodity back then. In hindsight, we now know that some of the greatest players of all time have come straight out of high school.
Fresh off winning the Naismith High School Player of the Year Award at Lower Merion High School, everyone knew Kobe had talent. In fact, the guard from Philadelphia had the interest of several big-name college programs. We now know that if Kobe had decided to pick a college, it would have been North Carolina (LATimes.com). Imagine how loaded that team would have been.
In any case, Kobe fully intended to go to the NBA. It was just a matter of what team and what pick. It’s funny now to think that one of the two or three best shooting guards of all-time would fall all the way to 13th in the draft. That truly does speak to just how loaded that draft was.
So, what was the impetus behind the trade? Well, that depends on who you ask. According to Kobe, the Hornets never wanted him. Per ESPN’s Baxter Holmes:
"“Charlotte never wanted me,” Bryant said after scoring 20 points on 5-of-20 shooting during a 108-98 loss on Monday. “[Hornets coach Dave] Cowens told me he didn’t want me. It wasn’t a question of me even playing here. They had a couple of guards already, a couple small forwards already. So it wasn’t like I would be off the bench much. “"
Kobe himself also tweeted about it back in 2014:
On this day 18yrs ago the hornets told me right after they drafted me that they had no use for me and were going to trade me #thanku #lakers
— Kobe Bryant (@kobebryant) July 1, 2014
So, that was it, right? Well, a lot of Hornets fans and even insiders would disagree. According to Charlotte Observer’s Rick Bonnell, the Los Angeles Lakers front office used Charlotte as a pawn to get Kobe:
"I was there, covering the 1996 draft and the ensuing trade for the Charlotte Observer. To suggest Hornets general manager Bob Bass or anyone else in the organization rejected Bryant is absurd. Bryant’s agent, Arn Tellem, and then-Lakers general manager Jerry West manipulated that draft masterfully. West wanted Bryant and he also wanted to create enough space under the salary cap to sign center Shaquille O’Neal as a free agent. He ended up with both, reinvigorating the Lakers."
Alas, we may never truly know who’s more to blame, but the Hornets did need a center given they had traded Alonzo Mourning in the previous season. Centers were a lot more integral to the NBA game than they are now, so the trade made some sense. Still, having Kobe play for the Hornets would have changed a lot about the NBA as we know it.