The Biggest Miss Ever: The Teams That Passed On Drafting Kobe Bryant

The 1996 NBA Draft turned out to be historic, an undeniable top-three class in League history. Multiple champions and MVPs and now-mythical ballplayers got their start on June 26, 1996.

But going into that night, GMs and coaches had already determined that there were a half-dozen can’t-miss players. Allen Iverson, Marcus Camby, Shareef Abdur-Rahim, Stephon Marbury, Ray Allen and Antoine Walker were the “Super Six of ’96,” the dudes that were locks to be selected first. And that’s how it played out.

Another half-dozen teams would make their picks, all missing out on a chance to draft the man who would immortalize the #8 and the #24.

So cheers to the Dirty Dozen and Unlucky #13 for making the mistake of a generation.

In honor of UNDEFEATED’s new Kobe 5 pack, we’re running down every player selected before Kobe and every franchise that got it wrong by not taking him.

Allen Iverson, Philadelphia 76ers

Italy was isolation. For most of his time over there, Kobe was alone, obsessing over basketball, dreaming and imagining the places that the game could take him. Then when he and his family got back to the States, they settled in Philadelphia. Lower Merion High School was the new headquarters for young Kobe to finally show the work he had put in during all those years.

It was like a comic book superhero had made his grand entrance.

Boom!

Pow!

Wham!

It wasn’t a bird or a plane—it was Kobe flying over every high school kid that dared to guard him. #33 was an unstoppable force, an immovable object that just wanted to see every school in Philly burn.

But the Sixers weren’t watching the story unfold. They selected Allen Iverson with the first pick in the ’96 draft.

Iverson and Bryant would have their battles. They’d each win and they’d each lose. Sometimes Kobe was the villain and sometimes he was the hero.

Until 2001, when Iverson earned League MVP and carried an offensively-challenged squad to the Finals. The roles were clear. Iverson was The Answer, the person that the entire country was rooting for. Kobe was the one standing in his way.

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But there was no happy ending, no way the sun would shine on Iverson and Philly. Kobe made sure of that.

He sent his hometown team back home by doing everything on the floor and reminding them in between hounding defense, marvelous shotmaking and an evil competitiveness that their local kid wasn’t a kid anymore.

“It was always a war,” Iverson said in 2016. “You knew you had to come with your best. He brought everything out of me. He’s a fighter. With all the criticism that came his way throughout the years, he was able to overcome it all. That’s how he’s built. He loves proving people wrong.”

You hear that, Philly?

2. Marcus Camby, Toronto Raptors

Defense, rebounding and leadership were the qualities that made Marcus Camby a sure thing coming out of the University of Massachusetts. He was forever steady on the backline, plus he brought athleticism to the offensive end, as well as a very famous shooting form that was actually good money for the entirety of his 17 years in the League.

But damn, did Kobe love playing against him. They played against each other 37 times and Camby came up on the wrong side of those matchups 24 times. Bean was out there giving him a light dose of 25 points every time they linked up. Then there were the times he gave Camby and his teams the gold-member level scoring treatment. Those were all-inclusive experiences that saw 51 points and 42 points (twice) get put on the Nuggets.

And that career average of 25 points per game against Camby got upped to 33 a night when they met in the 2008 playoffs. Bean put that Nuggets team out of their misery swiftly. In the four-game sweep he put up 32 points, then 49 points, then a calm 22 and ended them with an efficient 31.

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