News broke a few days ago that Warner Bros. had acquired the rights to make a movie about Lakers legend Kobe Bryant, though this doesn’t sound like it’s going to be a typical biopic. Most biopics give a wide view of their subjects’ lives over the course of many years, but this movie, tentatively titled With the 8th Pick? would instead focus on the 1996 NBA Draft.
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Kobe, a high school phenom who bypassed college and made the jump directly to the pros, was taken 13th overall by the Charlotte Hornets, and was then traded to the Lakers, with whom he went on to play his entire 20-year career.
Why focus on the eighth pick then? That selection was owned by the New Jersey Nets, coached at the time by John Calipari. The Nets’ front office reportedly wanted to take Kobe, but Coach Cal shot the idea down, and the team instead went with Kerry Kittles.
Kobe had a legendary basketball career, but he was also a true Renaissance man who spoke multiple languages and had many interests off outside of basketball. He even went on to win an Oscar after he retired from the NBA. The decision to focus on the night he was drafted is an unusual one, but it has Chad Johnson and Shannon Sharpe intrigued.
On last night’s episode of Nightcap, Johnson explained why. “I think it’s gonna be dope to relive and retell the story of how it all started,” Johnson said. “We know how it ended, when it comes to his career, but let’s talk about how it all started, how the Mamba Mentality came about in the beginning.”
Johnson continued, “It’s gonna be dope for me, because I don’t know his whole story. I know the finished product that I got to see on ESPN. I got to see that part … There are so many different layers to Kobe’s story that I don’t know about, especially when it comes to the draft process in those days.”
According to Variety, people familiar with the script described the movie as Moneyball meets Air. Both of those movies focused heavily on the men behind the scenes, and not so much the athletes themselves. For instance, Michael Jordan, Kobe’s idol, is the most important part of Air, but he hardly has any screen. It’ll be interesting to see what this means for Kobe’s draft night story.
I’m also reminded of Draft Day, the 2014 Kevin Costner-led movie in which he played a fictional Cleveland Browns general manager navigating the NFL Draft.
The story of Kobe’s draft night has become larger than life at this point, with reports insisting that he only wanted to play for the Lakers and even threatened to play in Italy if he wasn’t traded to L.A. How the movie handles this aspect of the story, especially since Kobe isn’t around to tell his side now, will be fascinating.
There are no known actors or any director attached to the movie yet, so Kobe fans and moviegoers will likely be waiting a while until they get to see the film.
