Kobe Bryant was close to giving up over $1 million after Coach K was trying to recruit him to Duke out of Lower Merion.
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Kobe Bryant enjoyed an illustrious 20-year career with the Los Angeles Lakers that involved MVPs, championships, and All-Star and All-NBA selections galore. Jerry West orchestrating the trade for a 17 year old high schooler on draft night in 1996 for the battle-tested Vlade Divac was definitely a move that wasn’t unanimously praised.
However, while at the high school level in Lower Merion High School in Pennsylvania, Kobe Bryant proved himself to be the top recruit going into that college season. He had shades of every single explosive guard you could think about, with Michael Jordan being at the very top of that comparison totem pole.
So, with such a high school phenom ready to take his game to the next level, top tier universities were frothing at the idea of having Bryant on their squad. According to the 5x champ himself, there were two colleges that were the most persistent: Duke and Kansas, each represented by legendary coaches in Coach K and Roy Williams.
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Kobe Bryant on getting recruited by colleges.
The year prior, Kevin Garnett had just gone pro and entered the NBA after finishing out his senior year of high school. KG once revealed that Kobe Bryant approached him in his rookie season, asking him about what it was like going pro straight from high school. It’s safe to say that the eventual 18x All-Star already had plans on going pro.
While talking with A-Rod on a podcast, Bryant did reveal that both Coach K and Roy Williams recruited pretty heavily during his senior season at Lower Merion.
“Coach K kept recruiting me. He kept recruiting me. He didn’t just resign to the fact that I’m going to go pro. He was persistent about it. So, at that moment in time, for me to make a decision and say, ‘Okay, you know what? I’m not going to go pro,’ it would have been Duke because Coach K just kept on keeping on. Roy Williams did too when he was at Kansas.”
If he had gone to college, he would’ve given up on earning $1.01 million from the Lakers for that one year as that would be his rookie scale contract. With the NCAA not allowing players to earn off their likeness, this could’ve been a factor in Kobe going to the NBA.
Also read: In the 2005-06 season, 35.4 ppg Kobe Bryant performed an incredible feat to beat LeBron James
