my rebuttal to your post:
first, don't get me wrong, i had alot of fun being in the competition and reading the other articles too....but i have to do this to you....go to
http://www.nba.com/playerfile/kobe_bryant/
and scroll down to this line
"Selected out of high school by the Charlotte Hornets in the first round (13th pick overall) of the 1996 NBA Draft....Draft rights traded by the Hornets to the L.A. Lakers for Vlade Divac on 7/11/96."
now you said,
"You only lost by 1 or 2 points I believe on my scorecard, and that had to do with your statement of Kobe wanting to get traded from Charlotte. How would Kobe know he was going to Charlotte? The Nets, Mavs, and Hornets all had expressed interest in him, so he could've gone anywhere."
also, you said he was totally unproven but he destroyed Stackhouse, Snow and Mckie in a pre-draft...wouldn't that make him noticed by NBA scouts?
then we have this from another site,
"Taken by the Charlotte Hornets with the 13 overall pick, Jerry West was able to pry him away for Vlade Divac. The move gave L.A. enough cap room to sign Shaquille O'Neal, in turn letting the Lakers bring Bryant along slowly"
which do you think they wanted to do more...steal a so called unproven guy or get enough room to sign shaq, who was in the prime of his career.
just some thoughts..and if you look at the 96 draft you'll see it was pretty stacked too...peja 14, nash 15