Kobe Bryant was told he was of no use to a team that ended up taking up a $4.7 million contract instead of him.
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Kobe Bryant came out of Lower Merion High School as quite the accomplished recruit. He was named Pennsylvania Player of the Year in his junior year at Lower Merion, averaging 31.1 points, 10.4 rebounds, and 5.2 assists. He did this while leading the Aces to a state championship in his senior year and posting up a 31-3 record.
Fast-forward to 2002 and Kobe had his no.33 jersey retired by his high school alma mater and rightfully so.
Coming out of high school however, it wasn’t a forgone conclusion that he would indeed make that jump straight from HS ball to the NBA. Coach K and Kansas State were the two major potential detractors here.
Duke came knowing at the door quite hard, according to Kobe Bryant himself, but eventually, as we all know, he decided to take his talents to the league. This most definitely was the right decision by the eventual Los Angeles Lakers legend. Unfortunately for him, the team that drafted him didn’t believe in his capabilities to succeed at such a young age.
Charlotte Hornets didn’t have faith in Kobe Bryant from the jump.
Kobe Bryant was drafted 13th overall by the Charlotte Hornets in the 1996 NBA Draft. However, behind the scenes, Lakers GM, Jerry Buss, was pulling strings to get the 17 year old kid into purple and gold threads from the get-go.
While Kobe did prove to be a hit from merely his sophomore season onwards, the Hornets never really had a ton of faith in his potential from when they decided to go after him.
In an interview with Stephen A Smith back in 2006, ‘The Black Mamba’ chopped it up over his journey to and through the NBA up until that point. when asked about his draft story, he would go on to say:
“After I got drafted, you have to go in and do your calls. So I go in and do a call and speak to a representative from the organization at the time. They told me that they were looking to move me because they didn’t have any use or need for me.”
SAS goes on to hilariously poke fun at the fact that that statement is redundant because they gave up Kobe Bryant for a Vlade Divac, who earned $4.7 million that 1996-97 season.
While messing up the Kobe sweepstakes was a massive blunder, it was kind of understandable at the time. The Hornets had had winning/41 win season for the past four years up until that point and felt as though they had a chance at competing for a championship.
They would make the Playoffs in both 1997 and 1998, losing to the Knicks and the Bulls in the first round and second round, respectively.
