“He wasn’t Garnett, he wasn’t 6’11″” – Kobe Bryant’s draft stock was low until he torched Michael Cooper in a private Lakers workout originally appeared on Basketball Network.
Not everyone was hyped when Lower Merion High School standout Kobe Bryant declared for the 1996 NBA Draft. It’s not because he lacked talent. Young “Mamba” was a decorated high school baller with individual and team accolades to show for.
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The reason behind Kobe’s poor stock was the not-so-distant past. The 1995 NBA Draft saw the arrival of another high school stud, Kevin Garnett from Farragut Academy. Unlike Bryant, KG had the height, which gave him an inherent advantage over most of his foes. NBA scouts would rather bet on a mobile big like Garnett over a seemingly conventional shooting guard like Bryant.
“In the beginning, after he announced, before he worked out with any team, a lot of teams thought he’d go at the end of the first round. He was a perimeter player, he wasn’t Garnett, he wasn’t 6’11”,” said Bryant’s agent Arn Tellem in 1998 via the Los Angeles Times.
Kobe’s workout with the Lakers
However, Tellem wanted to dig deeper into Bryant’s identity as a basketball player. Perhaps the scouts missed something. After all, Bean wasn’t your ordinary 6’6″ shooting guard.
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“I really wanted to get a gauge, so I brought him out to meet Jerry [West], have Jerry work him out,” Tellem said.
“After the workout — I’ll never forget it — when Jerry called up, he said it was the best workout he’d ever seen in his life. At the end of the conversation, he said, ‘We’ve got to figure out a way to get him here,'” he added
Kobe’s workout with the Los Angeles Lakers involved several standard drills to see how fluent the high school kid is with basketball. They also put him in one-on-one duels with Dontae’ Jones, the Mississippi State standout who was picked 21st overall in the 1996 NBA Draft.
“We had another guy here working out with him, Dontae’ Jones,” said Lakers assistant Larry Drew. “They were playing one-on-one. As you know, Kobe’s not a real big kid. Dontae’s a much bigger kid. But Kobe really held his ground.”
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Coop vs. Kobe
The organization took things up a notch by inviting 1987 Defensive Player of the Year Michael Cooper to check Bryant. Lo and behold, the young Mamba torched one of the greatest defenders of all time. West was floored upon seeing a lanky 17-year-old kid put moves on Coop.
“That was a uniqueness about Kobe; wherever he wanted to get on the floor, he was able to get there,” Cooper said. “Now, whether he hit the shot or not is a different story, but he was able to get to his spots. 60-70 percent of the time, he was knocking the shot down. For a 17-year-old kid, that was something spectacular.”
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Coop said the one-on-one drill lasted for 45 minutes. He bodied Bryant the way he guarded Larry Bird and Michael Jordan and was amazed that the youngster stood his ground.
“From the physicality standpoint, I was banging on him and bumping on him, and he was able to hold his own and go through that,” the 6’7″ guard said.
The 17-year-old had the fundamentals and the tenacity needed to thrive in the NBA. West cooked up a deal to acquire him from the Charlotte Hornets. The rest is history.
Related: A young Kobe Bryant was heartbroken over Magic Johnson’s HIV news: “It was very difficult”
This story was originally reported by Basketball Network on Jun 7, 2025, where it first appeared.