Kobe Bryant Left Ex-Teammate In Disbelief With Future Plan Years Before NBA Debut

Brian Shaw (the basketball guy, not the strongman) has a rare bragging right. He got to play against and know Joe “Jellybean” Bryant and his family, and then became his son’s teammate. It’s a different story that Joe’s 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, nothing prepared him for the then-teenager’s decision.

While on Byron Scott’s Fast Break, the hosts weren’t going to let Brian Shaw go without a Kobe story or two. He has some that predate Bryant’s NBA days. “I met him actually … 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,” he began.

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’s teams then. Even Shaw noted, “The team’s on the court warming up, and here’s this little kid challenging everybody to play one-on-one, to play horse, you know, and what have you.”

Shaw returned to the NBA the following year and ended up in the Orlando Magic, his first team-up with Shaquille O’Neal in 1994. Joe brought Kobe to the Magic’s finals run, and he’d meet Kobe for the first time since Italy. Their conversation went like this.

“So, now Kobe is the same height as me, in 11th grade, and he walks up to me with a whole bunch of confidence. ‘You remember me?’ I said. ‘Yeah, yeah. Man, I can’t believe you look at me eye to eye.’ ‘What grade are you in now?’ ‘I’m in 11th. I just finished the 11th grade.'” He was not even a senior in high school yet, and Bryant stunned Shaw with his next words. “Yeah, I was thinking about going hardship and skipping my senior year of high school. No b——-.”

Shaw didn’t reveal how he reacted to Bryant’s face then, but in his head, he thought, “I didn’t know anything about him as far as basketball, and I’m like, man, in my head I’m going, ‘Man, get the f— out of here, talking about he’s going to skip his senior year of high school and go straight to the NBA,’ right?” 

His surprise was understandable. Although Shaw admitted he had not paid attention to Kobe Bryant before that, to realize where that confidence came from.

Brian Shaw’s Real Kobe Bryant experience

Although Bryant said he would ‘go hardship’ to Shaw (unless he’s misremembering details), there were hardship rules in 1996. The ‘hardship’ 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 ‘hardship’ rule where teams with multiple injuries needed to rebuild their roster.

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’Neal, and then GM Jerry West acquired Bryant via the Charlotte Hornets. Brian Shaw probably didn’t realize any team would try so hard for a high school kid.

After Bryant had declared his intentions to Shaw, he had started observing the youngster. “And then I was like, ‘Oh, okay.’ That mentality and that attitude.”

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 ‘Shaw-Shaq Redemption.’ Shaw retired a 3x NBA champion after finally getting a firsthand lesson in the Mamba Mentality from that kid he met in Italy.