Auerbach and Carr talked about how well Bryant shot the ball. Carr raved about Bryant’s institutional knowledge of the game. Auerbach waxed about Bryant’s size and athleticism.
“I think this kid is going to be a hell of a player,” Auerbach told Carr. “But it can go either way. He seems to be solid, but he’s a high school kid. You’ve got to make a choice based on what you need today. But I think he’s a hell of a player.”
Auerbach left the decision of whether to draft Bryant in the hands of M.L. Carr. Had the Celtics kept their ninth pick, perhaps they would have been more amenable to taking the straight-out-of-high-school Bryant. But they traded up to snag the sixth pick, determined to take one of the so-called “super six:” Antoine Walker, Ray Allen, Shareef Abdur-Rahim, Marcus Camby, Allen Iverson and Stephon Marbury.
As the article notes, hindsight is 20-20, and while there had been some noteworthy success stories as far as players who skipped college - Moses Malone, Shawn Kemp, and Kevin Garnett was looking pretty promising, having made the jump a year before Kobe - teams were a few years away from really getting on board with the idea of taking chances on them with high draft picks. Antoine Walker was obviously a highly touted prospect, and these days is probably made out to be worse than he really was, though he obviously wasn't a franchise player and there's no way you'd take him ahead of Kobe today.
There's also the behind the scenes politics and posturing that we're not always aware of at the time. The articles notes that twelve teams would surely have liked a redo of the 1996 Draft, and Kobe himself has made fun of the Nets for passing on him. However, that's a bit rich, considering how Kobe's camp were pretty adamant about him not playing for the Nets, effectively persuading them to steer clear of him. With Kobe having an affinity for the Lakers even before they drafted him - well, had Charlotte draft him, and then traded Vlade Divac for him - would he have been eager to play 20 years in Boston, and carve out a legacy as a Celtics great? And would he still have five rings now?
