Bob Bass, former GM of the Charlotte Hornets, recently defended his decision to trade a straight-from-high-school Kobe Bryant for Vlade Divac.
“Let’s start out this way, ” Bass said. “There had never been a high school player come into the league that didn’t play in the front court.”
“Secondly, 12 other teams passed on Kobe Bryant; 12 other teams said, ‘I don’t want him.’ The Nets even got a workout. He refused to work out with us. He didn’t work out with anybody. We had talks on the trade, but we didn’t make it for about 3 1/2 weeks. We had a chance to get a 7-foot-(1) center who had been very successful in the league.
“You add all those three things together, that’s why the decision was made. Plus, he couldn’t make a jump shot when he first came into the league. We won 54 the first year Divac was there and 51 the next year. The only problem with that (Hornets) team was Michael Jordan was in his hey-day and Patrick Ewing had that great New York team. And we were in the Eastern Conference. That’s what happened on that.”
All reasonable points, though like any of the other 12 teams that passed on Bryant, they completely misjudged his talent.
