Lakers, Bryant owe much to Jerry West

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At the intersection of Hollywood and the Lakers, crazy, glitzy deals go down. One of the craziest went down in 1996, and it impacts the NBA to this day.Jerry West was the Lakers' general manager. One day he got a phone call from an acquaintance, sports superagent Arn Tellum."I've got this kid Kobe Bryant in town," Tellum said. "Want to have a look at him?"West knew of the 17-year-old Philly high school phenom, but hadn't given Bryant much thought. The Lakers weren't likely to gamble a first- or second-round draft pick on a high school kid, especially not a guard. The majority of NBA teams wanted no part of any kiddie lottery. No guard had been drafted into the NBA straight out of high school.Still, West didn't get his rep for genius-level shrewdness by following the crowd. He agreed to watch Kobe do a solo workout."I went to the Inglewood YMCA," West said, "and here's this bright-eyed, cheerful, bubbly, exuberant young man, ready to show us his wares. I had seen high school film of him, but you can't tell how competitive a player is on film. I watched him and I thought, 'Oh, my gosh, this guy's not too bad for a young guy.'"It was obvious he had very, very unique talent, something I hadn't seen in a person of that age. And he didn't want to stop (working out). He wanted to keep going and going and going. It was really eye-popping to watch."The Lakers' center was Vlade Divac. He was a fan favorite, but he had limitations and was getting older. Shaquille O'Neal was coming onto the free-agent market and the Lakers planned to take a hard run at Shaq, and if they got him, trade Divac.O'Neal had zero championship rings then, and many questioned his commitment to the game. West saw him as the Lakers' next dynasty cornerstone.After watching Bryant cavort at the Y, though, West started dreaming bigger, dreaming Hollywood-size dreams. But did he trust his eyes? He wanted another look at Bryant.This time West went to the Y with a posse, including former Lakers swingman Michael Cooper, who was retired but still in great shape. Larry Bird called Cooper (6-foot-5) the best defensive player he ever faced.Cooper, possessor of immense pride and every trick in the book, went one-on-one with Bryant, who demolished Cooper."Oh, my gosh," West recalls thinking, "This kid's got to be the best player in the draft. How can we get this guy?"After watching Bryant and Cooper go at it for about 10 minutes West stood up, nodded at two team public-relations men he'd brought with him, and snapped, "That's it, let's get out of here, I've seen enough. He's better than anyone on our team."West, on his way out the door, said to Cooper, "I thought you were supposed to guard him."Now West's cerebral wheels spun until they smoked. The Lakers had the No. 24 pick in the draft and West was desperate to trade up, as high as he could go. There was no way to tell who else might have caught a whiff of this kid's lightning.West didn't tell me this, but I'm sure he saw himself in Bryant. I believe that West believes he could have started his NBA career a year or two earlier, had the rules permitted, and I know West is still angry that he wasn't put into the starting lineup until midway through his rookie NBA season. If you've got it, you've got it.West tried to trade up for Denver's No. 10 pick, made a sweet offer. No dice. He tried two other teams. Nope. Then he tried Charlotte, which had the No. 13 pick. Charlotte needed a center and West offered Divac, even though the Lakers had no one to replace him, yet.Deal. Charlotte would draft Kobe if he was still available, and trade him to the Lakers for Divac.West sweated buckets. Drafting 11th, Golden State took Todd Fuller. When Cleveland selected Vitaly Potapenko, West literally put champagne on ice.The Lakers chose Kobe Bryant, to golf applause and general eye-rolling. They then courted and signed O'Neal, and skeptics held mass meetings. A championship team? All the Lakers had was an oversized, underachieving quipmaster center and a teenage guard who knew as much about team concept as he did about the theory of relativity.Thus began Part II of West's project, the development of the kid, who infuriated coaches and teammates."In practice, he would dribble-dribble-dribble through the whole team, nobody could stop him, but that's not basketball," West said. "He had a lot to learn."Had the Warriors drafted Bryant, chances are slim he'd still be with the team. Kobe needed someone like West, to counsel and advise him. The two remained close even after West left the Lakers in 2000, after the first of three NBA titles.West has been The Thread, a vital force behind every speck of Lakers' glory since the day he and the Lakers landed in L.A. together in 1960. Deep down, he's still a Laker, and he knows better than anyone what Bryant is capable of doing.Now the dreaded Celtics are threatening to woodshed the Lakers as they did many times in West's younger days. The only force that can stop them is Kobe Bryant.West, 70, is retired after spending five seasons as GM of the Grizzlies. He has no official connection with the Lakers; it's all spiritual. He'll be at Staples Center, but low-profile, in the shadows."There are very few players I'd pay to watch," West says, "but I'd damn sure pay my money to see (Bryant)."(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.scrippsnews.com.)