Kobe Meets Michael
Photo. Chris SembrotToday’s Philly Daily News has a story from longtime Sixers beat writer Phil Jasner called “Kid Kobe Dazzled Sixers” that briefly tells the story of Kobe Bryant’s development as a high school player, including him being the best player at Sixers practices and his first meeting with MJ:
“I brought him to the Spectrum when we were playing the Chicago Bulls, to introduce him to Michael Jordan,” then-Sixers coach and general manager John Lucas said. “Kobe was very polite, calling Michael ‘Mr. Jordan.’ When we left, I said, ‘Kobe, you’re coming into the league, you can’t be calling him Mr. Jordan.’ ”
His draft year – 1996 – Philly had the No. 1 pick, which ended up being Allen Iverson, so everything worked out.
And on a personal note, I’m two years older than Kobe and played against him a ton in high school in pickup and regular season games. The part of Jasner’s article where John Lucas is talking about how Kobe played all five positions on the court reminded me of a conversation I had with my coach during a break in a weekend pickup run at my high school. We had just finished watching a freshman Kobe destroy everybody in the gym and my coach I were talking about how “he’ll be able to play at any college he wants.” I’d say so…
Check out Jasner’s full story HERE.
June 5th, 2008 at 4:58 pm
doc says:
I seen Kobe play throughout all those high school years.He was on the older Sonny Hill team and they aint lieing when they say he was a fuckin problem.
June 5th, 2008 at 4:59 pm
Reed Ewing Frazier says:
Let’s go Celtics I need that $100 I’m betting on you!!
KOBE is great but he needs 4 more rings before he is the GOAT!!
KNICKS UP!! all the rest down!!
June 5th, 2008 at 5:11 pm
Kudabeen says:
I am four years behind Kobe and I remember when I was in 6/7th grade and playing in the PAL league I got to see Kobe. He was probably 15 or so and playing in the 18 and up league. He was making cats look goofy as hell. Every literally stopped playing ball and doing whatever they were doing to watch this guy do whatever he wanted. The only other modern day player that guys talked about in that light in Philly was Sheed. Never got to see him though…
I also remember when they had on the New locally that Kobe was the best player on the court at the sixer’s prcatice. Granted we sucked and I think our best players were Clarence Weatherspoon, Hersey Hawkins, and Jeff Honacek…
June 5th, 2008 at 5:26 pm
Dagomar says:
I just love these “origin” stories.
June 5th, 2008 at 6:31 pm
Clutch says:
Kobefied- the act of playing against another basketball player who can’t be stopped no matter what you do, in the most important moments of the game. As see here
http://www.coachingblunders.com/VideoDetail/tabid/55/Default.aspx?VideoID=178
June 6th, 2008 at 12:19 am
JoeGym says:
John Lucas had the Sixers practice at my hs when they came to Houston. I remember him saying this & heard Stack had trouble guarding him even then.
June 6th, 2008 at 4:02 am
qq says:
“KOBE is great but he needs 4 more rings before he is the GOAT!!”
Wrong, he needs 7 more Finals MVP’s.
June 6th, 2008 at 3:13 pm
Reed Ewing Frazier says:
oh yeah I forgot about that! 4 rings and 7 finals MVP’s
KNICKS UP!! all the rest down!!
July 13th, 2008 at 11:10 pm
slapster says:
Eddie Griffen was talked about that way in high school as well