Kobe Bryant, Jerry West and the draft workout that changed NBA history

By David Fleming ESPN
March 2nd, 2021

ON THAT MONUMENTAL day, the only thing Kobe Bryant carried with him was a basketball. It was early June 1996, on the morning of his now-legendary pre-draft workout in Los Angeles, when a skinny, smiley Bryant, then 17, stepped out of the swanky Shutters on the Beach resort in Santa Monica, California, with his favorite basketball tucked under his arm.

Waiting for him there in a Chevy Blazer was his driver for the day, Ryan West, the teenage son of NBA legend and longtime Lakers exec Jerry West. "It was the funniest thing, but it showed the two sides of Kobe," says Ryan, now a scout with the Detroit Pistons. "It showed the laser focus and dedication of Kobe but also the childlike nature of Kobe, bringing his favorite toy with him wherever he went."

Having someone Kobe's own age show him around L.A. was agent Arn Tellem's idea. This workout was potentially the seminal moment of Kobe's young career, and Tellem wanted his prodigy from Lower Merion High School outside Philadelphia as comfortable and relaxed as possible. The year before, the 6-foot-11 Kevin Garnett had joined fellow bigs Darryl Dawkins and Moses Malone in making the leap from prep to pro. But Kobe was the first guard to dare make the jump. "He's kidding himself," NBA scouting director Marty Blake told reporters at the time. "Sure, he'd like to come out. I'd like to be a movie star, too. He's not ready."

After working out for several NBA teams, though, Kobe, the son of former pro player Joe "Jellybean" Bryant, had been quickly climbing draft charts most of the summer. The Nets and their new coach, John Calipari, picking at No. 8, had already worked him out several times and were especially smitten.

From a marketing and basketball standpoint, though, Tellem knew there was only one place for his client: Showtime. All Kobe had to do was convince the team's architect and guardian, Jerry West, who had agreed to the workout only as a special favor to Tellem and had planned quite the comeuppance for the kid: Once he and Ryan dealt with the 405 Freeway, Kobe's on-court opponent would be Michael Cooper, one of the greatest defenders in NBA history.

What unfolded over the next 45 minutes inside the Inglewood YMCA still leaves most NBA insiders grasping for words 25 years later. Just not Ryan West. "It's very simple to sum up," he says. "Greatest workout I've ever seen."

Witnessed by just a handful of people (the videotape recordings have vanished) Kobe's Lakers workout would ignite a nonstop frenzy of pre-draft machinations, subterfuge and intrigue before ultimately launching a legend, revitalizing a dynasty, revolutionizing a sport and inspiring one epic oral history.

Mark Heisler, L.A. Times NBA writer, 1979-2011: Kobe was truly a prodigy. The word prodigy would have been invented for him as far as basketball goes. He told me once he thought he had a destiny in the NBA. I asked him: "When did you first start thinking that?" And he said: "When I was 5." Kobe didn't have "overwhelmed" in him. It was just the opposite. In Philly in high school, he had already been working out with the 76ers, and he didn't think any of these NBA guys could keep up with him, and to a large extent, it was true.

Bobby Marks, current ESPN analyst, Nets front office, 1995-2015: Back then you were allowed to have NBA players with three years or less of experience work out with draft prospects. So I ask Ed O'Bannon and Khalid Reeves to come in. Ed had just come off his rookie year, and he was the national player of the year before at UCLA -- and Kobe just dominated. These guys didn't take Kobe all that serious until he started lighting them up, and you could tell they had no idea what they had gotten themselves into until probably halfway through the workout. Heisler: His dad was an easy-going guy, a sweet guy, always laughing. He wasn't a hard-nosed competitor. But Kobe was. And that part, that passion for the work, that came from his mom, Pam -- she was the boss of that family.

Joe Carbone, Bryant's strength coach, 1995-2004: I was with him for one of his Nets workouts, and the look on Calipari's face the whole time was like, "holy s---." Calipari says, "Let me see you shoot the 3," and Kobe just starts stroking it effortlessly. So Cal says, "Take a few steps back." Boom. Swish. "Take a few more steps back." Boom. Swish. Cal says, "That's it, I'm done," and then, kinda to himself, he goes, "This guy's the next Jordan, I gotta get him."

Marks: We should have made him a guarantee right then and there, shut him down and put him in the witness protection program until the draft. After workouts each team is responsible for the player's travel. We had a rule that guys who were 6-foot-8 or above would fly first class, and Kobe was not 6-foot-8. I pled with the gate agent about the middle seat, but there was nothing available. I remember thinking at the time, oh who the hell cares, he's a 17-year-old kid, too bad. Well, I remember getting my ass chewed out by Arn Tellem. You laugh about it now, but back then, trust me, it wasn't funny.

Heisler: I was in Chicago for the draft combine that year and I walked into the Chicago Marriott and I looked up and saw Kobe on the mezzanine level, standing by himself looking down into the hotel lobby. I introduced myself, told him I knew his dad, and he said he was eventually headed to Los Angeles to work out for the Lakers. He looked like a teenage boy a long way from home. Shy wouldn't be the right word, but a little bit withdrawn. Soft spoken. He looked lonely. The first thing you think when you see him standing there was: Can he hack it at this level?

Mitch Kupchak, Lakers GM, 1994-2017: We knew who he was. He played in the McDonald's game, but we did not get a glowing report from that game. It was a very pedestrian performance.

Heisler: Even Arn didn't know what he had. He was originally from Philly and he had taken Kobe on as a client, but he was good friends with Jerry, and Jerry had a really good eye. If he saw a good player, he wouldn't need to talk to 12 people to confirm it. He'd know right then.

John Black, Lakers VP of public relations, 1989-2017: Jerry was clearly a genius at talent evaluation. At the draft that year I was the Lakers' designated in-person team representative, the guy in the arena, on the phone with our draft room back in L.A. We had the 24th pick that year, and it was between Derek Fisher and Jerome Williams, a 6-foot-9 power forward from Georgetown. We were on the clock with three minutes to make our pick and I was on speaker phone with Jerry, who started going around the room asking everyone who they liked. Time is ticking down -- two minutes left, one minute left, 30 seconds -- and every person said Jerome Williams. So now the NBA rep is standing right next to me and there's 10 seconds left and he wants to know who our pick is -- and in my other ear I can still hear all the people around Jerry saying Jerome Williams, Jerome Williams, Jerome Williams. And I say, "Jerry, time's up, who is our pick?" And he says, "John, we take Derek Fisher."

Jerry West, Hall of Famer, Lakers front office, 1982-2000: I didn't set it up. Kobe's agent, Arn Tellem, did. We had been friends for years, and he said Kobe was in town shooting a commercial. I had watched film on him but had never gone to see him in a high school game. I was aware of his father and I was very aware of Kobe's story, but [drafting guards out of high school] just wasn't in vogue at the time.

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