Lakers: Kobe: Trading Wiggins is just like when the Charlotte Hornets traded me

[Clipper Nation]

"When you look back at it, when we made that trade, here was a 17-year-old kid who had played in high school," said Bob Bass, the Hornets' executive vice president of basketball operations at the time. "Twelve other teams passed on him. We made a decision to win now and not later. We had Dave Cowens as our first-year coach, and I wanted to give him a chance to win. I knew if we got Divac in here, we'd win. I didn't feel the same about Bryant. Without Divac, I thought we might have won 25 games."

Bryant canceled a workout with the Sacramento Kings, who had the No. 14 pick in the first round in 1996 and declined to work out for the Hornets. His agent, Arn Tellem, also told the Hornets, according to Bass, that Bryant did not want to play in a small market such as Charlotte.

[RsxPiimp]

Bryant canceled a workout with the Sacramento Kings, who had the No. 14 pick in the first round in 1996 and declined to work out for the Hornets. His agent, Arn Tellem, also told the Hornets, according to Bass, that Bryant did not want to play in a small market such as Charlotte.

If people really want to be accurate. It wasn't the Hornets who wanted Bryant, it was Calipari and Nets. The Hornets were on the market for a center

The trade was more about the Lakers' pursuit of Shaquille O'Neal in free agency and the Hornets' need to acquire a center than it was about Bryant.

In order to get far enough under the salary cap to make a valid pitch to O'Neal, the Lakers needed to unload Divac's contract, preferably to a team under the salary cap and preferably for a draft pick. The Hornets had traded Alonzo Mourning the previous year, were without a bona fide center, and were well under the cap after renouncing the rights to free agent Kenny Anderson. They would trade Larry Johnson to New York for Anthony Mason later that summer.

The Hornets reasoned that they could come out of the draft with no better than Vitaly Potapenko or Todd Fuller if they drafted a center, and jumped at the chance to trade the 13th pick for Divac.
Branch scouted Bryant twice for the Hornets while Bryant was at Lower Merion H.S., but he said that the Hornets "never even considered him" as a player they would draft and keep. Bass was an old-school GM who liked to deal but didn't usually gamble on young players.



http://m.journalnow.com/archives/lak....html?mode=jqm

[Clipper Nation]

If people really want to be accurate. It wasn't the Hornets who wanted Bryant, it was Calipari and Nets.

Another team Kirby quit on:

Over lunch on draft day, Calipari and Nash told one of the Nets' seven owners, Joe Taub, that Bryant would be a Net in eight hours. Taub preferred John Wallace, the Syracuse senior, and worried that a high school kid might ultimately leave for a bigger market and a better team in free agency.


Only Bryant wasn't about to wait years for his liberation. He called Calipari after the coach's lunch with Taub, and Bryant's agent, Arn Tellem, called Nash. Prospect and agent declared they wanted no part of Jersey; Tellem even threatened that his client would play in Italy if the Nets ignored their wishes.

[Clipper Nation]

Sneaker maven Sonny Vaccaro would later admit he worked with his good friend, Tellem, to maneuver Bryant to a franchise that would maximize his marketing charms.

[Clipper Nation]

In 1996, Tellem made his mark as an NBA agent by cir venting that year's pro draft to maneuver 18-year-old Kobe Bryant to the Los Angeles Lakers. "Basically, I kept teams from picking Kobe by not giving their coaches access to him," Tellem told Sports Illustrated in 2003. "I knew teams would be reluctant to take a chance on a high schooler without first talking to him and working him out."

[Clipper Nation]

Bryant foreshadowed his gall. In 1996, Bryant, a teenager exiting high school for the N.B.A., was not the first pick, but he exuded self-importance when he refused to play anywhere but Hollywood.

Couldn’t Bryant be a Hornet? Could he grow to love Southern sweet tea?

"That is an impossibility," Bryant’s agent, Arn Tellem, said at the time. "There are no ifs. It would not happen. He is going to be a Laker, and that’s the only team he’s playing for."

[RsxPiimp]

Some people seem bent in proving he didn't want to play for a small market team, problem is no one is debating that anymore I'm simply stating all the report of Bryant forcing the Hornets wasn't true when it was New Jersey who had to pick Kittles was the team who wanted him all along.

[dg7md]

It's a little arrogant to suggest, but I'm afraid that he might be right. Wiggins has unlimited potential, while Kevin Love is basically at his maximum level of play. Even if the Cavs ring, the fact that the Cavs could have had him with their team with LeBron might be looked at as a mistake.

Still at people who think that Kobe isn't an amazing player. In his prime, he basically schooled us every night. Selective memory based on his last few seasons tbh...