“Except Kobe Bryant, I would trade everyone in the league for LeBron James”: Danny Ainge assessed a 15-year-old’s value more than almost every NBA player

Ainge knew LeBron James was going to be among the GOATs of the game and would have traded anyone for him as a junior high except Kobe Bryant.

An 18-year-old was labelled ‘The Chosen One’ to take over the NBA from the hands of Michael Jordan. It was a young King getting ready for the Draft in 2003 to be selected as the number 1 overall pick by the Cleveland Cavaliers.

The entire country knew about the high school prodigy who was about to start his career playing among grown men. All the sports media was ecstatic for the whole year before that Draft.

But one man knew that it was about to hit the world exactly in that way, much before everyone else. It was the Phoenix Sun’s head coach who also wanted to draft Kobe Bryant when the Celtics and Hornets were targeting him at the 13th pick in 1996.

Also read: $75M Pistons legend believes Kobe Bryant’s iconic lob pass to Shaquille O’Neal in 2000 WCF was Lakers dynasty’s ‘deciding’ moment

Danny Ainge would have traded any player in the league for getting a 15 yo’ LeBron James but not Kobe Bryant

Ainge is one of the best NBA executives of all time if you think about what was trying to do since he started in coaching/managerial roles after his retirement.

Although he and the Suns’ owner/president Jerry Colangelo tried their best but failed in trading up for Kobe who went to the Hornets as the 13th pick and ended up getting traded to the Lakers. Ainge somehow knew what that 18-year-old was capable of doing, he even foresaw Bron’s potential when he was just a junior in high school and not more than 15 years of age.

Rex Chapman, a former Suns player who played under him when he was the Head Coach in Phoenix, remembers exactly what he told him around the year 2000.

“He (Danny) said there’s a kid named LeBron James in Akron, Ohio, that right now, I would trade everyone in the league for, with an exception of Kobe!” Rex said on The Rich Eisen Show.

That was an incredible statement and sure enough, both Bryant and James became arguably two of the top five players in the history of the game.

But if Ainge had gotten what he wanted, either of them could have played for the Suns and who knows how it would have been now. Either way, the Phoenix Suns would be a legendary franchise by now.

Also read: 6’6″ Kobe Bryant showed 6-foot-9 LeBron James who was Michael Jordan’s true successor in typical Mamba fashion