There are arguably no players more important in Los Angeles Lakers franchise history than Kobe Bryant. Over the course of 20 years, Bryant became synonymous with the purple and gold, helping lead them to five championships and seven NBA Finals appearances over two decades.
And none of that would have been possible if not for the trade Jerry West and the Lakers made on NBA Draft night in 1996. L.A. dealt veteran center Vlade Divac to the Charlotte Hornets for the No. 13 overall pick, and used that to select Bryant. There was incredible drama in all phases of this deal.
And that drama is reportedly now in the works to become a feature film with Warner Bros. According to Matt Donnelly and J. Kim Murphy of Variety, the massive production company has acquired a spec script to put this move in the works:
Warner Bros. Pictures has acquired a spec script based on the dramatic true story of NBA legend Kobe Bryant joining the Los Angeles Lakers, Variety has confirmed.
Sports movies like these have ended up being very successful and exciting re-tellings of dramatic sports stories, with the spec script already garnering some lofty comparisons:
Other insiders familiar with the script described the film as “Moneyball” meets “Air,” Ben Affleck and Matt Damon’s recent feature detailing Nike’s courtship of a rookie-year Michael Jordan.
Moneyball set the standard for sports films that go behind the scenes on a true story, and Air was a huge success in its own right. And there is certainly enough drama in Kobe’s draft story to make an intriguing film. The Lakers needed to convince Divac to accept the trade to Charlotte for multiple weeks, as he had threatened to retire when he first was told about it.
Kobe was telling teams higher in the lottery that he would go play in Italy if he was drafted by a team he didn’t want to play for. This included the New Jersey Nets, who wanted to draft him No. 8 overall. All of that culminated in Bryant coming to L.A. at No. 13.
Dennis Rodman says Kobe Bryant isn’t talked enough about in GOAT debate
The debate over who is the GOAT in NBA history is a conversation that will go on forever. The conversation usually boils down to Michael Jordan vs. LeBron James, but there is a vocal contingent that will place Kobe Bryant in this debate as well.
Oftentimes, the people bringing up Kobe are current and former players themselves as his peers seem to rank him higher than many media members and fans. And now another all-time great is calling out the fact that Bryant doesn’t get mentioned nearly enough in these conversations and it is one of the greatest defenders of all-time in Hall of Famer Dennis Rodman.
Rodman recently appeared on a live stream with popular social media influencer N3on and was asked who he believes is the GOAT. Rodman answered Jordan, before bringing up the fact that people seem to forget about Bryant and don’t talk about him nearly as much as they should.
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