WI: Boston Celtics draft Kobe Bryant?

kobe-bryant-celtics-smile.jpg


As the tin says. Suppose the Celtics (who won 33 games in the 1995-96 season) decide to take their chances. A few days before draft day, the Celtics traded Eric Montross and their own pick in the draft (which went 9th) for the Mavericks' pick (which went 6th) and Dallas' 1997 pick. In OTL the Celtics picked Antoine "there are no 4s: Walker with the 6th pick, the Mavericks picked Samaki Walker with the 9th pick, while the Celtics picked Ron Mercer with the 6th pick in the 1997 Draft.

So what if the Cs draft a kid from Lower Merion High School named Kobe Bryant with their pick?

http://www.basketball-reference.com/teams/BOS/1996.html
http://www.basketball-reference.com/teams/BOS/1997.html

The Celtics actually got worse the following season, winning only 17 games and failed to win the lottery, in which Tim Duncan went 1st overall.
 
kobe-bryant-celtics-smile.jpg


As the tin says. Suppose the Celtics (who won 33 games in the 1995-96 season) decide to take their chances. A few days before draft day, the Celtics traded Eric Montross and their own pick in the draft (which went 9th) for the Mavericks' pick (which went 6th) and Dallas' 1997 pick. In OTL the Celtics picked Antoine "there are no 4s: Walker with the 6th pick, the Mavericks picked Samaki Walker with the 9th pick, while the Celtics picked Ron Mercer with the 6th pick in the 1997 Draft.

So what if the Cs draft a kid from Lower Merion High School named Kobe Bryant with their pick?

http://www.basketball-reference.com/teams/BOS/1996.html
http://www.basketball-reference.com/teams/BOS/1997.html

The Celtics actually got worse the following season, winning only 17 games and failed to win the lottery, in which Tim Duncan went 1st overall.

He probably refuses to go there, and plays overseas, but so what? He was acting like a spoiled baby when he only wanted to play for the Lakers. Let him go over there. Maybe he would grow up some.
 
He probably refuses to go there, and plays overseas, but so what? He was acting like a spoiled baby when he only wanted to play for the Lakers. Let him go over there. Maybe he would grow up some.

A proto-Brandon Jennings? They do have the same conscience-less gunner's mentality after all.

Double points for him going to Italy where he grew up.
 
Just think KG and Kobe pairing... What a insane competitive team would be... Out right Dynasty...

GO BOSTON !!!!... BANNER 18 WAITING US... WE CAN DO IT...
 
Just think KG and Kobe pairing... What a insane competitive team would be... Out right Dynasty...

GO BOSTON !!!!... BANNER 18 WAITING US... WE CAN DO IT...

They would probably have traded Kobe for KG. There were rumors in 2007 that Kobe was going to get traded.
 
He probably refuses to go there, and plays overseas, but so what? He was acting like a spoiled baby when he only wanted to play for the Lakers. Let him go over there. Maybe he would grow up some.

:rolleyes: Kobe wouldn't have gone overseas, he would have played for the Celtics if they had drafted. The only reason he became a Laker was because of Jerry West. The only player in that draft that could have dictated what team he would or wouldn't play for would have been Allen Iverson.

Kobe didn't start in L.A. his first two seasons in OTL. But if the Celtics had drafted him he would have started from day one. Meaning they would not have drafted Paul Pierce in 1998. But the Celtics still would have been bad but would have tried to build around him going into the 2000s. The Lakers meanwhile probably would have still signed Shaq in the summer of 1996 made the moves that got them players like Robert Horry and Rick Fox. Since they signed Shaq the Lakers would have looked to trade Vlade Divac (packaged with Elden Campbell) to the Hornets for Larry Johnson. Giving the Lakers a starting lineup of:

C-Shaquille O'Neal
PF-Larry Johnson
SF-Rick Fox
SG-Eddie Jones
PG-Nick Van Exel

with Robert Horry as the sixth man.

The Lakers would've likely still hired Phil Jackson in 1999 with that lineup.

Meanwhile in Boston they would have tried to build around Kobe but it would have been rough starting out. The Celtics still would have been a lottery team for the rest of the 90s, and it's hard to determine where the ping pong balls would have bounced in the draft lottery. But I doubt with a very young Kobe that Boston's fortunes would have been much different from 1996 to 2000 than it was in the OTL. Boston could have still likely drafted Chauncey Billups in 1997. Boston could have traded their 1998 first round pick and Travis Knight to Washington for Chris Webber (who was having off the court problems at the time). Then in 1999 Boston could have signed Vlade Divac as a free agent.

So by the 1999-2000 season Kobe would have started becoming the superstar player he was to become, and the Celtics could have had a lineup of:

C-Vlade Divac
PF-Chris Webber
SF-Bruce Bowen
SG-Kobe Bryant
PG-Chauncey Billups

With Rick Pitino as the head coach. Boston definitely would have been one of the top teams in the eastern conference. Which would have have came just after the Chicago Bulls dynasty. So we might have had another Lakers/Celtics rivalry at the beginning of the 21st century.
 
:rolleyes: Kobe wouldn't have gone overseas, he would have played for the Celtics if they had drafted. The only reason he became a Laker was because of Jerry West. The only player in that draft that could have dictated what team he would or wouldn't play for would have been Allen Iverson.

Kobe didn't start in L.A. his first two seasons in OTL. But if the Celtics had drafted him he would have started from day one. Meaning they would not have drafted Paul Pierce in 1998. But the Celtics still would have been bad but would have tried to build around him going into the 2000s. The Lakers meanwhile probably would have still signed Shaq in the summer of 1996 made the moves that got them players like Robert Horry and Rick Fox. Since they signed Shaq the Lakers would have looked to trade Vlade Divac (packaged with Elden Campbell) to the Hornets for Larry Johnson. Giving the Lakers a starting lineup of:

C-Shaquille O'Neal
PF-Larry Johnson
SF-Rick Fox
SG-Eddie Jones
PG-Nick Van Exel

with Robert Horry as the sixth man.

The Lakers would've likely still hired Phil Jackson in 1999 with that lineup.


Meanwhile in Boston they would have tried to build around Kobe but it would have been rough starting out. The Celtics still would have been a lottery team for the rest of the 90s, and it's hard to determine where the ping pong balls would have bounced in the draft lottery. But I doubt with a very young Kobe that Boston's fortunes would have been much different from 1996 to 2000 than it was in the OTL. Boston could have still likely drafted Chauncey Billups in 1997. Boston could have traded their 1998 first round pick and Travis Knight to Washington for Chris Webber (who was having off the court problems at the time). Then in 1999 Boston could have signed Vlade Divac as a free agent.

So by the 1999-2000 season Kobe would have started becoming the superstar player he was to become, and the Celtics could have had a lineup of:

C-Vlade Divac
PF-Chris Webber
SF-Bruce Bowen
SG-Kobe Bryant
PG-Chauncey Billups

With Rick Pitino as the head coach. Boston definitely would have been one of the top teams in the eastern conference. Which would have have came just after the Chicago Bulls dynasty. So we might have had another Lakers/Celtics rivalry at the beginning of the 21st century.

If they couldn't have gotten by Utah, then probably.

As for Kobe, I always assumed that he wanted to play for just the Lakers and nobody else, but maybe I was wrong. I know that the Nets were thinking about drafting him, but I think he said that he didn't want to play there or something.
 
If they couldn't have gotten by Utah, then probably.

As for Kobe, I always assumed that he wanted to play for just the Lakers and nobody else, but maybe I was wrong. I know that the Nets were thinking about drafting him, but I think he said that he didn't want to play there or something.

Utah wouldn't have been L.A.'s problem going into the 2000s. San Antonio would have been the Lakers obstacle in the west.

I don't see why Kobe would have wanted to only play for just the Lakers when he was being drafted. When Kobe was drafted Shaq wasn't in L.A. yet. Kobe was drafted in June of 1996 and Shaq didn't sign with L.A. until a month later. Then Phil Jackson wouldn't become the Lakers head coach until 1999. When Kobe was drafted/traded to L.A., the Lakers hadn't been a championship caliber team since before Magic Johnson retired five years earlier. Plus L.A. already had a shooting guard in Eddie Jones who was their first round lottery pick in 1994. Kobe had to have known he wouldn't start as a rookie if he went to the Lakers.
 
As a Laker fan, the notion of Kobe playing with the Celtics is an absolutely abhorrent one that would cause me to tear my eyes out and remove everything green from my household. If it happened in real life though, I'd probably hate Kobe with a virulence that dwarfs anything that I could imagine hating Paul Pierce and his wheelchair for. He definitely would have played for the Celtics, and played for them with pride though; hey, if Paul Pierce who grew up only a stones throw away from the Great WEstern Forum played all these years for the Celtics, then Kobe would as well.

As for how it would play out, its still a stretch that they would have drafted Kobe 9th, as High Schoolers were unproven commodities.

The Spurs drafting Tim Duncan was an anamoly, which only happened after David Robinson missed the entire season and then they decided to tank the season.

Even if the Celtics do suck for the 96-97 season, which they still would in any case, its still a hard chance that they would get the Number 1 pick overall. Obviously, if the Celtics pick Duncan and pair him with Kobe, if you put a good coach around them then you're in business. They'd probably make the playoffs in the 97-98 season and get a hard lesson on the intensity of playoff basketball, but assuming that the Celtics can draft and sign good supporting players around them (like keeping Fox after 96-97), drafting a decent pg that can hit the 3, Kobe and Duncan is a very viable potential dynasty in the making.

However, if Boston doesn't get the Number 1 pick, it could end up drafting the likes of Keith Van Horn, as aside from Duncan, (and T-Mac, but he probably wouldn't be selected since the Celtics would already have Kobe) the 97-98 draft wasn't particularly strong. Chauncey Billups could work and you'd have a very strong backcourt (IOTL, he was actually considered a dissappointment at first and would need some maturing).

As for the Lakers, they would still be a pretty good team with Eddie Jones as your two guard with Nick Van Exel (who unfortunately was a nutcase). With Jones though, half the time you're not sure that he had a pulse. Assuming that the Lakers get Phil by 2000, there's still a decent chance that the Lakers could win that year with Shaq paired with Jones or an equivalent 2 guard, but they're not winning in 2001 or 2002 without Kobe. The Lakers also got Rick Fox before the 97-98 season, which meant they would have been starting Ceballos in 96-97, who was a 20ppg scorer (but unfortunately had that jet ski incident in 96 which made him a dead man walking before that 96-97 season). He was probably gone in any case, since Ceballos would have clogged the lane for Shaq, so yeah, they probably still trade him for Horry or the appropriate equivalent. Larry Johnson would have had to have been acquired from the Knicks, so it would have been Anthony Mason from the Hornets, whose pretty much the same though in terms of being a tough but undersized PF.

Personally, what I think might have been cool is that in 96, after drafting KG the previous year, the T-Wolves pair him with Kobe instead of head-case Stephon Marbury, so you end up with two guys straight out of HS who are ultra-competitive, gym rats, starting a long playoff run. I'm of the opinion that Kobe and KG would have really gotten along. Plus as an added bonus, Kevin Harlan probably sticks around as the local broadcaster for the Wolves.
 
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