LOS ANGELES — Considering how much work it takes to leap from great to truly historic, a legend is made more than he is born.Truth be told, the two are interconnected. A legend fits his field naturally, and all that work gets done because he simply loves doing it.The romance of the story is rooted in the same place: He was meant to be this, to do this…and become that legend.With how well and how long Kobe Bryant has played basketball, he is a natural.It is too soon to go all sepia tone in rendering Bryant's career while he primes for yet another adversity-overcoming, critic-answering season. But Bryant's last chapter is unfolding, and the Lakers must plot their future and hunt their next headliner.They have spent much of the past six months since Bryant last played, and especially the past two months, dedicated to draft preparation, angling for a high first-round pick who can be a true star.The Lakers, so lame without an injured Bryant that they landed the No. 7 overall pick (their highest draft spot in 32 years), brought in high-end prospects they almost never get to work out in their home gym. They measured, studied and challenged them to gather as much intel as possible.
And then Jim Buss went up to former Kentucky forward Julius Randle after his workout a week ago, shook his hand and looked into his eyes. Mitch Kupchak did the same to former Arizona forward Aaron Gordon three days later. Maybe they saw something in those eyes that clicked, something that will make this draft a certainty instead of guesswork, something so undeniable that the moment will someday become memorable.Only one time in Lakers history did that happen.It was Jerry West's predraft workout of Bryant in 1996.Michael Cooper remembers a lot more than most do.Bryant's workout quietly happened so long ago—and wasn't necessarily destined to wind up being a big deal—that details are sketchy for many who were there.Cooper remembers because he's the only one who looked down, hands on knees, at that dark-painted court afterward. "Wet and winded" is how Cooper described himself when West called off the workout after about 30 minutes, having seen enough. Cooper is the one who felt the sharp pokes from Bryant's already nasty elbows—and the blows to Cooper's NBA Defensive Player of the Year ego stung even more.Contrary to previous public documentation of that day at Inglewood High, the Lakers had a few other prospects on the court, scouting their skills with some two-on-two, weave drills, on-ball defense and other basic tests.
After all that was when West wanted Bryant to play one-on-one against Cooper, who had retired as an NBA player six years earlier. Cooper was 40 but still athletic, actively involved in the game as a Lakers coaching assistant and savvy enough to school the kid who just brought pop star Brandy to his prom.It was solely Bryant on offense and Cooper on defense."Jerry said, 'Coop. Play him. Push him. Deny him. Work him. Play him physical now!'" Cooper recalled.
It started off with Bryant taking Cooper off the dribble. The footwork Bryant has always cared about more than any of his peers, then and now, was on full display. So was the explosiveness. Bryant got inside with his burst or just hit from the outside.Bryant did so well, with such a steady hand against the guy Larry Bird once called the best he'd ever faced, that the foremost objective had been quickly achieved, and Cooper knew it."I'll go ahead and use the word: fear," Cooper said. "There was no fear in him. I think that was what they were looking for."Aside from the trash he will admit to talking on that court, Cooper's other choice words from that day are "eye of the tiger.""Kobe definitely had it at a young age," he said. "I think everybody saw that. I saw it."
West moved the game into the low post, where the play got much more physical. Cooper described it as "strange" how this low-stakes matchup—one guy, just 17, and the other guy, over-the-hill—evolved into a ferocious showdown.Norm Nixon, Cooper's teammate on the 1980 and '82 Lakers championship teams, happened to be there as an agent representing a couple of the other prospects. Nixon was deeply enthralled, yelling, "Coop! Get into him!"
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