Most of you know that the late great Kobe Bryant went straight to the NBA out of high school in 1996. What we had never heard before though was that part of the reason why he did so was because his father and mother were having serious financial woes and he felt he had no choice. This according to Tex Winters, the inventor of the famous Triangle offense that the Chicago Bulls used when Phil Jackson and Michael Jordan were bringing home rings and trophies in the ‘90’s. Winters also coached with Jackson in LA,
where he presumably got to know Bryant well.
And here’s the kicker.
Winters says that Bryant actually did want to go to college and while Bryant at times said that it would have been either Duke or UNC, according to author Roland Lazenby, Winters said this to say about that: “He [Tex Winter] said that Kobe didn’t go to college. Kobe had very mixed feelings about that. He wanted to go play for Mike Krzyzewski at Duke, but his parents, what people didn’t realize, his parents were badly in need of money.”
Kobe’s father, Joe, had a solid NBA career, playing from 1975-83, and then overseas for a time (Kobe spent much of his younger years in Italy).
But basketball salaries then were not what they are now and the elder Bryant only made about $1.9 million during his NBA career.
It’s very tempting to think about the what-if here. Think about where Duke was in 1996. This was one year after the 1995 collapse, where Duke finished 13-18. In Kobe’s senior year at Lower Meridian, they had flipped that to 18-13.
In what would have been his freshman year, Duke, obviously looking for athletic wing players, brought in Mike Chappell, Nate James and Chris Carrawell and finished 24-9. Would they have dropped their pursuit of one of those guys if Bryant had committed? Presumably, and hopefully it would have been Chappell, who ended up leaving after his sophomore year anyway.
Now let’s assume Bryant had stayed past his freshman year – a reasonable assumption in that era. In 1997-98, Duke brought in a tremendous freshman class of William Avery, Shane Battier, Elton Brand and Chris Burgess, adding those guys to returnees Ricky Price, Roshown McLeod, Steve Wojciechowski, Taymon Domzalski, Trajan Langdon and of course Carrawell, James and Chappell, although we hypothetically deleted him as a recruit when Bryant took his spot.
That team finished 32-4 and made it to the Elite Eight – without Bryant. What would have happened with him?
The next year, Duke finished 37-2, losing to UConn in the Finals. Imagine what he might have done against the Huskies.
If he had stayed to his senior year, Duke finished 29-5 with a very thin roster, bowing out in the Sweet Sixteen.
Now imagine adding him to a team with Shane Battier, Chris Carrawell, Nate James, Jason Williams, Carlos Boozer and Mike Dunleavy. A backcourt with Kobe and J-Will? The mind boggles.
To be real, a lot of things would have changed, starting with what would have been Bryant’s freshman class, as discussed above. Would Duke have had an epic class the next season? Would Corey Maggette have come to Duke if Bryant was emerging as a superstar?
It’s impossible to know any of this stuff. It’s all hypothetical (there’s also a reasonable chance we got some details wrong but even if we did, you get the idea).
It’s fun to think about though and it ties into something we’ve thought about for a long time but never really explored. We’ll look at that soon.
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