On his recollections on the New Jersey Nets wanting Kobe and then going to Charlotte and ultimately ending up with the Lakers… Sonny Vaccaro: Pam, Arn and Joe knew that the trade would’ve been made with Jerry West and people at Charlotte on Divac for Kobe. All he had to do is get to 13. Now we knew the biggest ones who was really, REALLY interested was John Calipari and the New Jersey team. We knew they were interested and he talked to Arn a lot of times. I only talked to John one time during the draft. Arn handled all that, but in the green room it comes to number #8 and they say Kerry Kittles. All the kids are in the green room and Pam, Arn and I jump up and then we were embarrassed [laughs] because Kerry was sitting behind us and they asked us why did you jump up Sonny? I said, ‘We were happy for Kerry!” and we were and it was beautiful segway because I did know Kerry from the camps and stuff so it was a natural thing but ton your audience, all we had to do was to get past number #8 because 9, 10, 11, 12 never worked Kobe out and we KNEW they weren’t taking him.
Kerry Kittles Rumors
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Kerry Kittles
Position: -
Born: 06/12/74
Height: 6-5 / 1.96
Weight:179 lbs. / 81.6 kg.
Earnings: $55,580,373 ($93,034,870*)
Born: 06/12/74
Height: 6-5 / 1.96
Weight:179 lbs. / 81.6 kg.
Earnings: $55,580,373 ($93,034,870*)
Kerry Kittles on the Brooklyn Nets’ chances of winning a title without Kyrie Irving in the fold currently… “No. They need Kyrie. They DEFINITELY need Kyrie. I just think that it puts too much pressure on those two guys. I think in this era nowadays, you need three stars. You definitely need three high caliber players that can control the game with the ball in their hands. We saw what happened last year with the injuries across the League; the game is so fast now, you know? Injuries are always going to play a role in today’s game unfortunately and Kyrie definitely has to come back to help this team get to the championship and have a chance of winning it. Without him, if they can make the Eastern Conference Finals, that would be a great season. I don’t care what happens in the regular season. They DEFINITELY need Kyrie in the postseason.”
Kerry Kittles on his relationship with Kobe while he was at Lower Merion while he was at Villanova: “I first met him through John Lucas who was coaching the Sixers at the time and John used to have workouts all the time at St. Joe’s [St. Joseph’s University] and St. Joe’s was down the road from ‘Nova. So I’m working out with John and I’m working out with Maurice ‘Mo’ Cheeks and then Kobe comes in and he was the local high school kid and we were like, “Oh snap! This kid can GO! This boy is talented.” So it was workouts and more workouts and then we’re playing one-on-one and I was like, ‘Bro. You’re ready for the League NOW!’ and knew he was ready. He didn’t need me to tell him that [laughs]. He was just that talented and that hungry. He really wanted to dominate. He didn’t care who he was playing against; he was playing against me, he was playing against [Jerry] Stackhouse, he was playing against Eddie Jones; he wanted to dominate. He was just THAT confident. So I knew he was special and when I played against him the first time when he was on the Lakers I was like, Oh yeah. He’s exactly what I thought he would be. He wasn’t a fluke from Day One.”
The following is an excerpt from “1996: A Biography – Reliving the Legend-Packed, Dynasty-Stacked Most Iconic Sports Year Ever” by Jon Finkel. The book is available now on Amazon. To borrow a song title from Green Day (the perfect mid-90s band), picks seven through 12 of the 1996 NBA Draft were a boulevard of broken dreams for NBA executives. They contain a collection of men that run the gamut from “solid pro” to “absolute bust” and no matter how defensible the selection was at the time, within 24 months it was clear that, to be blunt, these six franchises missed. This isn’t 2021 revisionist history. This is 1997-1998 near-immediate regret.
It’s one thing as a general manager to look in the mirror and know that taking Allen Iverson or Marcus Camby or Shareef Abdur-Rahim or Stephon Marbury or Ray Allen or Antoine Walker with one of the first six picks of the ’96 draft was the right basketball call at the time. They all made the ’96-’97 All-Rookie Team (1st or 2nd) and there were two bona fide Hall of Famers (Iverson and Allen) several all-stars (Abdur-Rahim, Marbury and Walker) and Camby was a 4x All-Defensive Team player.
It’s quite another thing to know that from the seventh through 12th picks, you took one of these half-dozen guys: Lorenzen Wright – L.A. Clippers Kerry Kittles – New Jersey Nets Samaki Walker – Dallas Mavericks Erick Dampier – Indiana Pacers Todd Fuller – Golden State Warriors Vitaly Potapenko – Cleveland Cavaliers Over Kobe Bryant. Or Steve Nash. Or Jermaine O’Neal. Or even Peja Stojakovic. That’s a clean 35 All-Star selections from picks 13 to 17 versus none from picks seven to 12.
