So we return to the heart-stopping, mind-bending hours leading up to the '96 draft. The Nets had worked out Bryant three times, and fell madly in love all three times. Calipari and Nets general manager John Nash dined with Kobe's parents, Joe and Pam, the night before some lucky NBA team would hire the Bryants' high school wonderchild. Joe and Pam told the Nets' officials they wanted Kobe in the Meadowlands, close to their suburban Philly home.
Calipari and Nash agreed: They would select Kobe with the eighth pick.
The following day, Bryant's agent, Arn Tellem, informed Nash his client would play in Italy -- where Kobe spent some formative years watching his father play pro ball -- if the Nets dared to draft him. The GM knew Tellem must've had a deal in place. Nash knew that Jerry West, then in L.A., thought Bryant was about as good a young prospect as he'd ever seen.
As it turned out, Tellem and Adidas' Sonny Vaccaro had cooked up a plan to get Bryant to the Lakers via Charlotte, which was holding the 13th pick. The agent and the sneaker rep knew Kobe would slip to 13 if the Nets took a pass, and they knew the Los Angeles market would present a zillion more marketing opportunities than the East Rutherford market.
Vaccaro gave Kobe's father a job, and he had Tellem give the Nets a song and a dance. Nash wanted to call the bluff, but Calipari was afraid his first move could end up a Same Old Nets disaster. The coach took the safest available option. He went with Kerry Kittles of Villanova and Charlotte took Bryant and traded him to the Lakers for Vlade Divac.
"I get sick every time I think about it," Nash once told me.
At the '98 All-Star game, where Bryant drew the ire of David Robinson and others by throwing a wraparound pass to himself, Kobe claimed he had no pre-draft issues with the Nets. "Jersey would've been fine with me," he said. "Close to home, family and friends coming to the game. No problem."
It was a lie. Just like the lie Kobe tells now, the one where he had nothing to do with running Shaquille O'Neal out of town.
Truth is, Kobe Bryant deserves this vile mess of his. He won three titles with O'Neal, but decided he'd rather be a solo Hollywood act. He wanted to be Cher, not Sonny, and Mitch Kupchak went ahead and dealt O'Neal to Miami without getting the Heat's best player in return.
Brilliant. Bryant was happy for a bit, at least when he wasn't being dragged into a Colorado courtroom, and then reality zapped him like a blind pick. His Lakers weren't very good. He could score 81 points in a regular-season game, but that wouldn't help him a lick in a best-of-seven with the Suns
