Kobe Bryant's former agent Arn Tellem looks back on the legend and how he became a Laker

Arn Tellem is vice chairman of the Detroit Pistons and an alternate governor on the NBA board of governors. Before that, he had a long and distinguished career as a player agent, representing some of the game's biggest stars, including Kobe Bryant. Tellem wrote this column for the Free Press ahead of Monday's memorial service in Los Angeles for Bryant, his daughter and the other victims in the helicopter crash that killed nine people on Jan. 26:  

In 1996, some two decades before I became the Pistons' vice chairman, I was Kobe Bryant’s first agent.

I grew up in Philadelphia, the hometown of Kobe and future Pistons greats Rasheed Wallace and Rip Hamilton. Much of my childhood and all of my adolescence centered on local basketball and its mecca, the University of Pennsylvania arena known as the Palestra.

During the spring of 1972, I was there for the city high school championship between Bartram, the public school champ, and St. Thomas More, which had won the Catholic League title. The star of Bartram was point guard  Joe “Jellybean” Bryant, who six years later would become Kobe’s father. Despite Joe’s heroics (18 points, 12 rebounds), the Braves missed 14 of its first 15 shots and lost, 53-45. What I most remember about that contest was Joe’s talent, which was similar to Magic Johnson’s, incredible on the fast break and in the post.

I enrolled in college in suburban Philadelphia and Joe got a scholarship to nearby La Salle, where he was named an All-American and married Pam Cox, whose brother, Chubby, was also a storied Philadelphia high school player.

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Joe played pro ball for eight seasons in the NBA, then another nine in Italy and France before returning with Pam and their three kids in the Philly suburbs.

Meanwhile, I had graduated law school at Michigan and was carving out a career as an agent.

Kobe enrolled at Lower Merion High, where, as a 14-year-old freshman, he started for the varsity. He finished his prep career by guiding the Aces to a state championship and becoming southeastern Pennsylvania's all-time leading scorer, with 2,883 points, surpassing even Wilt Chamberlain.

After the season I asked Joe to introduce us. I had watched tapes of Kobe in action and was immediately impressed by the way he played the entire floor, like the Pistons’ Grant Hill, and had a Jordan-esque ability to score seemingly at will from inside. His poise and self-possession were almost preternatural: Nothing seemed to faze him.

What made him really special was his determination, his fierce competitiveness, his incredible will to improve. He had a fearsome intellectual curiosity — in both English and Italian — and his enthusiasm was contagious. The glint in his eyes wasn't just joy: It was sparks from a fire that couldn't be tamped down. Talking to Joe, I sensed that his love for his boy was magnificent and encompassing. Not every father gets a chance to start his son off in his own footsteps. 

In high school, Kobe trained with the Philadelphia 76ers. By his senior campaign, the big question was, would Kobe attend a college like La Salle, where Joe was an assistant coach, or turn pro. During the previous three decades, only six U.S. players had joined the NBA without playing college ball, and all of them had been big men: Moses Malone, Darryl Dawkins, Bill Willoughby, Shawn Kemp, Thomas Hamilton and Kevin Garnett. Kobe was a 6-foot-6 guard.

I asked Kobe what he wanted to do. He didn’t hesitate.

“I’m going to the NBA,” he said. “I want to be the next Michael Jordan.”

So he declared for the 1996 NBA draft. At the time, I lived in Los Angeles and had developed a close friendship with Jerry West, the general manager of the Lakers. I flew Kobe to L.A. so that Jerry could watch him work out against Lakers veteran Michael Cooper. Jerry was so impressed that, after only 20 minutes, he shut down the session.

“I’ve seen enough,” Jerry told me. “This kid is the best talent in the draft.”

Mind you, this was a draft that featured future Hall of Famers Allen Iverson and Ray Allen.

Unlike every other draftee who wanted to be picked as high as possible, Kobe was more concerned with where he’d wind up. His dream was to play for the fabled Lakers, which I did my best to accommodate.

Basically, I kept other teams from picking Kobe by not giving their coaches access to him. I knew teams would be reluctant to take a chance on a high schooler without first talking to him and working him out.

On draft day, Kobe was picked 13th overall by Charlotte and shortly thereafter traded to the Lakers. In the 1996-97 season, he was the second-youngest player in NBA history. He would go on to become the youngest All-Star in league history in his second season.

I remember Kobe telling me that a defining moment in his brilliant 20-year NBA career was the infamous air ball game against Utah in the 1997 Western Conference semifinals. With the Lakers’ season on the line, he took four shots — one in the final seconds of the fourth quarter, three in the final minute of overtime — none of which came close to going in the basket. The Lakers lost in five games, and Kobe was left with a humbling rookie moment.

“It was an early turning point for me in being able to deal with adversity, deal with public scrutiny and self-doubt,” he said.

That night, after the team plane landed back in L.A., Kobe drove to Palisades High and practiced shooting until dawn. He repeated that routine every day for the rest of his offseason.

Failure to Kobe was just another step in the path to greatness.