[QUOTE=ImKobe]credible source to back your claims, please.[/QUOTE]
the eyetest bro. use the eyetest. kobe is a fakkit
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[QUOTE=ImKobe]credible source to back your claims, please.[/QUOTE]
the eyetest bro. use the eyetest. kobe is a fakkit
I saw that. Not sure why he feels the need to lie about it at this point.
I was there for the draft. It was speculated days before the draft among Laker fans and espn that Kobe wanted to go to L.A. and if he couldn't have his way he'd go to college. In reality it was the Lakers who had already set up a trade with Charlotte and asked Kobe to refuse to play for the Nets or any other team that wasn't the Lakers. You think a guy like Kobe would have dropped down to #13 in this year's draft? He would've been taken no lower than 4th.
[QUOTE=Droid101]Kobe hasn't played basketball all year and yet has the most threads on the front page.
You people are embarrassing.[/QUOTE]Until Lebron wins another ring his fans will be in full damage control mode.. it's only going to get worse
From Rick Bonnell of the Charlotte Observer:
[Quote]I was there, covering the 1996 draft and the ensuing trade for the Charlotte Observer. To suggest Hornets general manager Bob Bass or anyone else in the organization rejected Bryant is absurd.
Bryant’s agent, Arn Tellem, and then-Lakers general manager Jerry West manipulated that draft masterfully. West wanted Bryant and he also wanted to create enough space under the salary cap to sign center Shaquille O’Neal as a free agent. He ended up with both, reinvigorating the Lakers.
The Hornets were more or less pawns in all this. Tellem wouldn’t let some lottery teams -– including the New Jersey Nets and the Hornets -– work out Bryant, a high school player from suburban Philadelphia. About a week before the draft Bass asked me what I was hearing about all this. He suspected the same thing I did, that Tellem was trying to direct Bryant to a team outside the top picks.
The morning of that draft we got a tip at the Observer that the Hornets were discussing a trade to acquire a center. Eventually, working with Scott Howard-Cooper, then of the Los Angeles Times, we figured out this was the deal: If Bryant lasted to the Hornets’ 13th pick, they would select him and deal him to the Lakers for Divac’s pre-existing contract. That gave West both Bryant and the cap space to pursue O’Neal.
This got a little complicated when Divac threatened to retire, rather than report to the Hornets. I asked Bass what he’d do if Divac didn’t relent and Bass said he’d keep Bryant.
That put Tellem in a nasty mood. Eighteen years later I remember him screaming at me over the phone from Southern California that Bryant would be a Laker no matter what.
Divac gave in and the deal was completed in July.[/Quote]
It doesn't really matter. Kobe is irrelevant.
[quote=rufuspaul]From Rick Bonnell of the Charlotte Observer:
It doesn't really matter. Kobe is irrelevant.[/quote]
From John Delong of the Winston-Salem Journal:
[quote]
... in an interview during the 2000 Finals when the Lakers beat Indiana for the NBA title, said emphatically that he would have gladly played in Charlotte. Sure, he wanted to play for the Lakers, but who wouldn't? He also said that had he gone to college, he would have signed with Duke, so he liked the area.
"The deal was actually done a day ahead of time, and it was Vlade for a player to be named," said Bill Branch, the Hornets' head scout at the time who still operates out of Charlotte as a scout for the Seattle-now-Oklahoma City Sonics. "If I remember right, they didn't even tell us who they wanted us to pick until about five minutes before the pick was made. So it was never a matter of us actually drafting Kobe."
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.
[/quote] It doesn't really matter. Kobe is relevant.
[QUOTE=Doctor Rivers]From John Delong of the Winston-Salem Journal:
It doesn't really matter. Kobe is relevant.[/QUOTE]
:applause: