In the summer of 1996 (an amazing summer for hip-hop music, which included the debut album of Jay-Z), a few weeks after getting drafted by the Hornets, being told he “wasn’t needed” by the Hornets coach (Dave Cowens denies this story, which Kobe told) and then traded to the Lakers for a grumpy Vlade Divac, a 17-year-old Kobe Bryant made his NBA summer league debut. The showboating high school phenom from Philly scored a team-high 27 points against the Detroit Pistons. After the game, an impressed Pistons’ coach, Alvin Gentry, raved about the rookie by saying, “I have never seen a better player at his age at his position.”
The Lakers then played an exhibition game in China, where Kobe eclipsed the 20-point mark again with 22 points. He followed that game up with a 15-point performance.
Then came his statement game against the Phoenix Suns: a No. 32 wearing Kobe scored a summer-high 36 points (9-of-22 from the field and 17-of-21 from the line) in 38 minutes and dished out five assists. He also had seven turnovers, but nobody complained.
The complaints came right before training camp, when he broke his left wrist playing an ill-advised pick-up game at Venice Beach (the vets told him not to play at the beach, so Kobe came back a few days later to do his best Sidney Deane impersonation and ended up injuring himself on a dunk) and couldn’t practice for five weeks.
“This will set him back,” GM Mitch Kupchak said. “This will certainly ensure that we will bring him along slowly, that’s for sure. If you’re looking for a silver lining, it’s that we won’t rush him along.”
Then, in one of his first exhibition games, he suffered another injury (hip), and sat out most of the preseason and the first game of the season: an easy win over the Phoenix Suns and the LA debut of Shaq (23 points, 14 rebounds) and a little known Steve Nash (0 points, 0 rebounds, 0 assists in 5 minutes).
Two days later, on November 3, 1996, Kobe made his official NBA debut against the Minnesota Timberwolves and second-year player Kevin Garnett. Shaq dominated (35 points & 19 rebounds), and Kobe played six minutes, finishing with 0 points, 1 rebound, 0 assists, 1 block, 0 steals, 1 turnover, 1 foul, and just 1 field goal attempt. KG had 12 points and 6 boards for the Wolves, led by Tom “The Bomb” Gugliotta aka Googs.
Kobe would score his first point two days later in a game against the Knicks, but he finished with just one point in three minutes of action. It would take four games for him to score in double figures and 25 games until his first 20-point game.
You could say Kobe had a slow start to his NBA career, but he turned out OK.
MY JOURNEY AS A KOBE FAN
I take great joy in saying I remember turning on ESPN2 one day in 1995 and recording an impressive dunk contest between dunk monster Lester Earl and some kid named Kobe Bryant.
The 1st time I heard the name KOBE BRYANT was in 1995 when I was channel surfing & came across this high school dunk contest with him, Cory Powell & Lester Earl on ESPN. After seeing 1 dunk I hit record on the VCR without even thinking about what I was taping over.
— David Astramskas (@redapples) February 25, 2020
The Footage pic.twitter.com/AQvBjpMwwv
I followed his career closely for the following decades and was a guest of NIKE to attend Kobe’s final NBA game after spending the day doing many of Kobe’s favorite things.
I’ll always be grateful to Nike & Ballislife for this amazing day #MambaDay pic.twitter.com/dJLd4uBH5P
— David Astramskas (@redapples) April 13, 2020