58-point game in 2006 highlights Kobe Bryant’s career against Charlotte

Los Angeles Lakers guard Kobe Bryant will play his final game in Charlotte on Monday before retiring after the season from a Hall of Fame, 20-season NBA career. Some memories of Bryant’s interactions with the Hornets:

The trade

The deal that exchanged Bryant’s draft rights for Los Angeles Lakers center Vlade Divac has been called one of the worst trades in NBA history. Perhaps, but there is context to that 1996 transaction that seems to have been forgotten over time.

Bryant, then a high school player from suburban Philadelphia, refused to work out for the Hornets and many other lottery teams. His agent, Arn Tellem, was steering Bryant to the Los Angeles Lakers after general manager Jerry West became enthralled with Bryant’s workout.

West worked out a pre-arranged deal with then-Hornets general manager Bob Bass that if Bryant lasted to the 13^th pick, the Hornets would select Bryant and swap him for Divac. It got complicated when Divac threatened to retire rather than move to Charlotte. Eventually Divac relented and became a solid piece of a group that included Glen Rice and Anthony Mason and made multiple playoff appearances.

Moving Divac’s contract to Charlotte provided West with the salary-cap room to sign center Shaquille O’Neal in free agency. O’Neal and Bryant became a championship combination, winning three titles with the Lakers in the early 2000s.

The faux slight

For some reason, Bryant hangs with the notion the Hornets shunned him on draft night 1996. Last summer he tweeted, “On this day 18 yrs ago the Hornets told me right after they drafted me that they had no use for me and were going to trade me #thanku #lakers”

This is revisionist history and Bryant knows better. The fix was in to get Bryant to the Lakers. When Divac said he’d retire rather than accept the trade to Charlotte, Bryant suggested he might play in Italy rather than play in Charlotte.

I asked Bryant weeks into his rookie season what he would have done had Divac not reported to the Charlotte.

“I’d be a Hornet,” Bryant said with a grin.

Like I said, he knows better.

The 58-point explosion

Bryant’s most prolific game in Charlotte has to be the triple-overtime loss to the then-Bobcats in December 2006. Bryant scored 58 points. Charlotte won 133-124.

Bryant played 54 minutes that night, making 22 of 45 shots from the field. Those 45 attempts are a record for a Hornets opponent. Bryant made 4-of-11 from 3-point range and 10-of-12 from the foul line. He had five rebounds and four assists.

To illustrate the extent Bryant carried the Lakers that night, Los Angeles’ second-leading scorer was Luke Walton with 14 points. Walton is now interim coach of the Golden State Warriors.

Gerald Wallace scored 28 points that night for the Bobcats. Matt Carroll added 27 off the bench.

The Philly connection

Bryant and Carroll are Nos. 1 and 2 all-time in scoring among high school players in southeastern Pennsylvania.

Carroll will call Bryant’s final game in Charlotte as color analyst for the Hornets’ radio network.

The buzzer-beater

Bryant’s most dramatic shot in Charlotte came at the end of the Feb. 22, 2002 game – the last season the original Hornets played here.

George Lynch was guarding Bryant in a tie game with the clock about to expire. Bryant drove toward the lane, pulled up from 18 feet to the right of the basket, pump-faked once and swished a jump shot. He hit the floor, slid a few feet and came up fist-pumping over the victory.

This story was originally published December 27, 2015 at 3:37 PM with the headline "58-point game in 2006 highlights Kobe Bryant’s career against Charlotte."