{"id":113024,"date":"2025-09-02T11:18:09","date_gmt":"2025-09-02T11:18:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/113024\/"},"modified":"2025-09-02T11:18:09","modified_gmt":"2025-09-02T11:18:09","slug":"kobe-bryant-left-ex-teammate-in-disbelief-with-future-plan-years-before-nba-debut","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/113024\/","title":{"rendered":"Kobe Bryant Left Ex-Teammate In Disbelief With Future Plan Years Before NBA Debut"},"content":{"rendered":"

Brian Shaw (the basketball guy, not the strongman) has a rare bragging right. He got to play against and know Joe \u201cJellybean\u201d Bryant and his family, and then became his son\u2019s teammate. It\u2019s a different story that Joe\u2019s son schooled the veteran more than once. That just says a lot about how B-Shaw saw Kobe Bean Bryant grow. But even if he knew Kobe before he was the Black Mamba,\u00a0nothing prepared him for the then-teenager\u2019s decision.<\/p>\n

Watch What\u2019s Trending Now!<\/p>\n

While on\u00a0Byron Scott\u2019s Fast Break, the hosts weren\u2019t going to let Brian Shaw go without a Kobe story or two. He has some that predate Bryant\u2019s NBA days. \u201cI met him actually \u2026 when I left Boston to go to Italy, I played against Jelly Bean. And Kobe was probably nine or ten years old at that time in Italy,\u201d he began.<\/p>\n

After the Boston Celtics picked him in 1988, his NBA career had a rough start. In the meantime, he signed with the Italian team, Il Messaggero Roma, in 1989. At that time, Joe Bryant was in his sixth season in Italy and signed with Reggiana. Kobe Bryant was getting his basketball introduction in Italian camps and his dad\u2019s teams then. Even Shaw noted, \u201cThe team\u2019s on the court warming up, and here\u2019s this little kid challenging everybody to play one-on-one, to play horse, you know, and what have you.\u201d<\/p>\n

ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n

Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n

Shaw returned to the NBA the following year and ended up in the Orlando Magic, his first team-up with Shaquille O\u2019Neal<\/a> in 1994. Joe brought Kobe to the Magic\u2019s finals run, and he\u2019d meet Kobe for the first time since Italy. Their conversation went like this.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo, now Kobe is the same height as me, in 11th grade, and he walks up to me with a whole bunch of confidence. \u2018You remember me?\u2019 I said. \u2018Yeah, yeah. Man, I can\u2019t believe you look at me eye to eye.\u2019 \u2018What grade are you in now?\u2019 \u2018I\u2019m in 11th. I just finished the 11th grade.’\u201d He was not even a senior in high school yet, and Bryant stunned Shaw with his next words.<\/a> \u201cYeah, I was thinking about going hardship and skipping my senior year of high school. No b\u2014\u2014-.\u201d<\/p>\n

ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n

Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n

\"article-image\"\/<\/p>\n

USA Today via Reuters<\/p>\n

Shaw didn\u2019t reveal how he reacted to Bryant\u2019s face then, but in his head, he thought, \u201cI didn\u2019t know anything about him as far as basketball, and I\u2019m like, man, in my head I\u2019m going, \u2018Man, get the f\u2014 out of here, talking about he\u2019s going to skip his senior year of high school and go straight to the NBA,\u2019 right?\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

His surprise was understandable. Although Shaw admitted he had not paid attention to Kobe Bryant<\/a> before that, to realize where that confidence came from.<\/p>\n

Brian Shaw\u2019s Real Kobe Bryant experience<\/p>\n

Although Bryant said he would \u2018go hardship\u2019 to Shaw (unless he\u2019s misremembering details), there were hardship rules in 1996. The \u2018hardship\u2019 clause, where players could skip the age eligibility due to compelling financial problems, had been discontinued for two decades by then. Nor was the other \u2018hardship\u2019 rule where teams with multiple injuries needed to rebuild their roster.<\/p>\n

Nevertheless, Kobe Bryant was a unicorn in a draft scenario. He was a teen in a class crowded with experienced college players, including Allen Iverson. Several moves were made for Bryant to end up with the Lakers, including trading Vlade Divac to get Shaquille O\u2019Neal, and then GM Jerry West acquired Bryant via the Charlotte Hornets. Brian Shaw probably didn\u2019t realize any team would try so hard for a high school kid.<\/p>\n

ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n

Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n

After Bryant had declared his intentions to Shaw, he had started observing the youngster. \u201cAnd then I was like, \u2018Oh, okay.\u2019 That mentality and that attitude.\u201d<\/p>\n

As for Shaw, he had multiple stops when he arrived in LA in 1999. The Lakers, with new coach Phil Jackson, were ready to make a finals run with Shaq & Kobe. And we also got some self-indulgent spectacles of the \u2018Shaw-Shaq Redemption.\u2019<\/a> Shaw retired a 3x NBA champion after finally getting a firsthand lesson in the Mamba Mentality from that kid he met in Italy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Brian Shaw (the basketball guy, not the strongman) has a rare bragging right. He got to play against…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":113025,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[557],"tags":[64,63,590,85],"class_list":["post-113024","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-nba","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113024","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=113024"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113024\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/113025"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=113024"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=113024"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=113024"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}