LeBron James was dubbed the ‘Chosen One’, the worthy heir to Michael Jordan’s emptied throne, in 2003 as he made his way to the NBA Draft as a high school graduate. However, Kobe Bryant didn’t receive a similar hype before the 1996 NBA Draft. The reason was pretty simple—nobody had achieved success in the NBA straight out of high school.
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Kobe’s longtime Lakers teammate Derek Fisher admitted that he fell victim to a similar thought process. The 50-year-old explained on Podcast P with Paul George that he had no logical reason to believe at the time that Kobe Bryant would be competitive in the NBA, let alone be a generational talent.
“In 1996, we hadn’t seen yet—now Kevin Garnett had been to the league—but we really hadn’t seen a high school guy really come in and have a level of success and sustained excellence that we have become accustomed to seeing now,” Fisher told PG.
He himself was a senior in college unsure that he really can survive in a league with players like Michael Jordan, Charles Barkley, and John Stockton, to name a few. So he just couldn’t fathom an 18-year-old like Kobe being anything but a pushover in the NBA.
“I couldn’t fix my brain to understand that Kobe was so good that he was ready for that assignment coming out of high school…I hadn’t seen him play, I hadn’t seen him work out, I knew nothing about him other than what you read in the media,” the former Laker added.
That kind of underestimation of his qualities was also why Fisher could build a friendship with Kobe from day one, he admitted. Both of them treated each other as peers on the basis of their hard work, not on the merit of their talent.
Fisher also stressed on the fact that Kobe relied more on his work ethic than his talent. So that also played a role in downplaying his brilliance. In other words, Fisher was pretty much oblivious of the extent of Kobe’s talent.
“I had actually never seen that before. Even Michael Jordan went to North Carolina, Magic Johnson went to Michigan State, Larry Bird went to Indiana, all the greats that had come before that had went to college,” he added.
However, Fisher would soon go on to question his presuppositions after witnessing the details in Kobe‘s game. His mind would soon start to register the Mamba’s true potential as he would go on to win five NBA Championships with him.
Kobe always wanted Fisher in the trenches with him
Fisher’s departure from LA in 2012 was a tough moment for Kobe, more so than the Arkansas guard’s first departure in 2004, because by then the Lakers superstar had realized the value of Derek on the team. Kobe knew that Fisher was with him on every single Championship run.
His departure in 2012 would usher in the dusk of Bryant’s stint with the Lakers.
“Very difficult,” Kobe told ESPN on his thoughts about playing without Fisher. “I’m not used to it because I’ve been with him my entire career, aside from that little stint that he had away from us. So, it’s very different for me. It’s pretty weird.”
Fisher was one of the few players in the NBA circuit who really understood Kobe and his antics on the court. That’s why he achieved so much success with him.
