[kingsfan1018Participant]

Why did Kobe fall all the way to 13th in the 96 Draft ? Was there that many flaws in his game or was it just a strong draft class ? Discuss …

[Mr.BigShotParticipant]

Teams passed on him, he made it clear He wanted to go to the Lakers, plus he was just coming out of HS.

[DanEboyParticipant]

Found this on the internet…kinda funny.

In ’96, that same Jerry West as the Lakers GM invited Kobe Bryant to work out against guys on his 53 win playoff team and couldn’t believe what he saw. So prior to draft night he made a deal with the then Charlotte Hornets to draft Kobe and trade him to the Lakers in exchange for Vlade Divac. The starting center for the Lakers had solid averages of 12.9 ppg, 8.6 rpg, 3.3 apg, & 1.7 bpg, that season. The Hornets made the deal. Score one for the Lakers. This also allowed the Lakers to keep their own 1st round pick (#24) which they used to draft Derrick Fisher.

But something else had to happen, 12 teams had to pass on Kobe in order for the Lakers to get a shot at Kobe, so who did these professional NBA GMs select instead?

The 1st 13 picks of the 1996 draft:

1. Allen Iverson by Philadelphia (future hall of famer, looked good then, now not so good)
2. Marcus Camby by Toronto (solid traditional 7’0 pick)
3. Shareef Abdur-Rahim by Vancouver (neither player nor team ever reached potential)
4. Stephon Marbury by Milwaukee (nuff said, what a trivia question)
5. Ray Allen by Minnesota (very good scorer, yet may not ever reach 20,000 career pts)
6. Antoine Walker by Boston (this one I love, Kobe could have been a Celtic, haha, instead they choose Antoine, a guy who never met a 3 point attempt he didn’t like, I love it)
7. Lorenzen Wright by L.A. Clippers (no surprise, it’s the Clips)
8. Kerry Kittles by New Jersey (where forth art thou Kerry, where fort art thou Jersey?)
9. Samaki Walker by Dallas (this is becoming embarrassing)
10. Erick Dampier by Indiana (at least he’s still around, more than we can say about picks 3,4,6,7,8, & 9))
11. Todd Fuller by Golden State (who???)
12. Vitaly Potapenko by Cleveland (yes Cavs fans, your team blew it too)
13. Kobe Bryant by Charlotte

So Laker haters, spread some of that hate around, don’t only aim it at the Lakers but at your own teams for having non professionals manning their front offices. And this was no fluke, it’s what the Lakers do. Wilt, Kareem, Magic, Worthy, Shaq, Kobe, Gasol, and the list goes on. Players WANT to play on the Lakers. And the Lakers continue to surprise folks with their ability to acquire talent. Regardless of draft position, salary cap, or how well they did the year before. (Guys like Worthy & Artest were acquired while Lakers were already CHAMPS) Will we add Andrew Bynum’s name the list of incredible talent passed over by other teams…..or will we add LeBron James name in 2010??

[tucker42090Participant]

Ray Allen is already passed 20,000.

[surveParticipant]

Hindsight is 20/20, but I will say this, I am from North Carolina and I said it on draft night, the Hornets didnt know what kind of player Bryant was. (The Hornets, Bobcats, Panthers, etc…NC pro sports has terrible organizations.) I was also surprised that Kobe slipped as far as he did because his hype coming out of high school was incredible! Not to mention the year before Garnett, the 1st prep-to-pro in 20 years had a solid rookie season. Of course Garnett was no Lebron in his first year so that may have made some hesitant in picking Bryant so high in the lottery. Still, I didnt think there were too many who had potential to be better than him. I can understand half of the picks like the first 6 because they were all amazing collegiates and prep players, the 2nd half….all of those guys were big gambles, which we see, never turned out to be really good. To me Bryant shouldve been picked no less than 7th, but on draft night, I honestly thought he was going to go between 3 and 5 because people were saying he was a better prospect than KG even.

[DanEboyParticipant]

Yeah, I assume this article is old….

[surveParticipant]

Hindsight is 20/20, but I will say this, I am from North Carolina and I said it on draft night, the Hornets didnt know what kind of player Bryant was. (The Hornets, Bobcats, Panthers, etc…NC pro sports has terrible organizations.) I was also surprised that Kobe slipped as far as he did because his hype coming out of high school was incredible! Not to mention the year before Garnett, the 1st prep-to-pro in 20 years had a solid rookie season. Of course Garnett was no Lebron in his first year so that may have made some hesitant in picking Bryant so high in the lottery. Still, I didnt think there were too many who had potential to be better than him. I can understand half of the picks like the first 6 because they were all amazing collegiates and prep players, the 2nd half….all of those guys were big gambles, which we see, never turned out to be really good. To me Bryant shouldve been picked no less than 7th, but on draft night, I honestly thought he was going to go between 3 and 5 because people were saying he was a better prospect than KG even.

[d-grizzlyParticipant]

peja was taken after kobe……i think sacramento would have taken kobe if he was available.

[IndianaBasketballParticipant]

The Nets were SERIOUSLY considering picking Kobe with the 8th pick, but chose Kerry Kittles instead. Kittles had a great career at Villanova and that got him the nod.

[JoeWolf1]

There were still a lot of questions about players coming out of high school at that time. Garnett paved the way, but he was a 6’11” post player who was outside of the mold of what a power forward should be in 1995. There were still some questions about a guard coming out and making the transition, and there were questions about Kobe’s defensive ability at that time of his career.

It really took Garnett, Kobe, T-Mac and even Jermaine O’Neil’s breakout year in 2001 to open the flood gates for the likes of Kwame, Curry, Chandler, Lewis and tons of others from 2001-2004. Sure there were other guys like Harrington and Bender and flops like Leon Smith that came out from 1998-2000. There are a lot of trends when it comes to drafts and over the years I’ve noticed that once one type of player that is a little outside the mold succeeds other teams try to find gems with similar tendancies and often they don’t work out.

It wasn’t that Kobe was underrated or no one saw his potential, but rather he was one of the first and there were still a lot of questions about whether he’d fall on his face. For younger fans I bet It’s hard to look at today’s superstars who many of them did come straight from high school, and think why wouldn’t Kobe go top 5? But it’s because of Kobe, Garnett and others that Lebron, Howard and Brown were taken so high.

It’s because of Dirk that the European style big man’s stock soared in the early 2000’s and it’s because of Derrick Rose and Rajon Rondo that a 6’4” athletic point guard like John Wall is going to go #1 this year. It’s also because of Garnett the lanky, athletic power forward has become such a trend even if that player must be “taught” offensive ability. I know I kind of went off on a tangent, but the draft is FULL of trends and when you break it down a player like Kobe going 13 in 1996 makes all the sense in the world despite the fact he is the best player of his generation.

[llperez]

yeah, joe wolf pretty much nailed it. Not only was drafting a highschooler still new but a guard was considered very risky. I remember reading where the lakers worked him out and said he had the most impressive work out for them since Magic Johnson. He did insist on the lakers, but that was late in the process after the lakers made it clear they wanted kobe and kobe became sold on the idea. I do believe that was more of a bluff then anthing to get his way, becasue in the end i doubt he would have sat out his rookie season becasue he didnt want to play somewhere else.

It’s all good for the lakers in hindsite, we got the best player in the draft. I also always point out how that summer the lakers were dumping salaries like crazy to make room for shaq. They traded away both ANthony peeler and George Lynch for second round picks. They were desperate for someone to take vlade off their hands so they could afford shaq. Getting kobe and clearing cap space for shaq all by trading vlade has to be one of the biggest steals in nba history.

[Author]

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