Arn Tellem says the NBA’s Kobe Bryant story could have started somewhere very different.
On The Draymond Green Show, Bryant’s first agent explained how close the New Jersey Nets came to taking the future Lakers star in the 1996 NBA Draft, and how a late shift in the process helped push Bryant to Los Angeles instead. Tellem said Bryant was headed toward New Jersey with the eighth pick before Jerry West and the Lakers found a way to change the board.
“When we came out that year, he was gonna go to the Nets with the eighth pick,” Tellem said. “Jerry West, we had the secret workouts.
Jerry and I were very close at that point. And Jerry said he really wanted him and he loved him.
And Jerry said, ‘Look, I have big plans. I’m gonna try to get a big free agent, the big fella Shaquille O’Neal.
I’m gonna try to remake this team, and I want Kobe to be part of it.'”
West had seen enough of Bryant after a workout against Michael Cooper, but the Lakers were stuck at No. 24 and needed help getting into range. Tellem said Bryant’s pre-draft path was tightly managed, with workouts limited to a small group of teams. That cut down the field, but it also made the Nets the real danger.
“So we started the workout process that year, and he worked out for some of the top teams,” Tellem said. “But fortunately, I cut it off at New Jersey, and New Jersey was the one team that was gonna take him. And it really wasn’t until, I think, the day before the draft that Jerry called me, and he finally said, ‘I can get the 13th pick.’
“I’ll never forget that meeting with Kobe and Joe Bryant in his hotel room,” Tellem added. “Kobe pulled me down, and he said, ‘I wanna be a Laker; that’s why I hired you.
Get me to the Lakers.’ I knew if we could get him past New Jersey, he would fall to 13.
I didn’t let any of those teams see him. Your Golden State Warriors were one of those teams.”
Bryant was already a head-turning prospect out of Lower Merion High School in Ardmore, Pennsylvania, but the leap from high school to the NBA still carried risk. That’s why the draft-day chain of events mattered so much.
The Lakers eventually worked out a trade with the Charlotte Hornets to move up to No. 13, sending Vlade Divac the other way. Once that deal was in place, the only thing left was for New Jersey to pass.
Tellem described the moment the Nets did exactly that.
“My rival and good friend David Falk was at the table next to us at the draft, and he was representing Kerry Kittles,” Tellem said. “And they say, ‘With the eighth pick, the New Jersey Nets take Kerry Kittles.’
They’re happy because that’s where they wanted to go. We’re celebrating.
We’re going crazy.
“They think that’s where we wanna go; they don’t understand,” Tellem added. “They’re looking at us, why are we celebrating more than they are?
And David comes up to me and says, ‘Why are you celebrating? Do you have something up your sleeve?’
And I said, ‘Yes, I do, David. You’ll see pretty soon for yourself.'”
The Hornets selected Bryant at No. 13 and then sent his rights to the Lakers for Divac. That move also cleared the salary space for Los Angeles to sign Shaquille O’Neal to a seven-year, $120 million deal.
From there, West’s offseason work set the stage for a Lakers run that delivered a three-peat from 2000 to 2002. Bryant and O’Neal became one of the defining duos in NBA history.
ESPN’s Bobby Marks later offered another piece of the story from the Nets’ side, saying the team was warned Bryant might go to Italy if they picked him. Marks, then a Nets executive, also said Bryant’s workout with New Jersey was the greatest he had ever seen. The what-if hangs there: if the Nets had ignored the warning, would Bryant really have gone overseas?
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