Yikes. The Charlotte Hornets might be the poster child for “what could have been” in NBA history.
It’s not every day you draft a future Hall of Famer. It’s almost impossible to draft two and let both of them walk on the same night. Yet somehow, that’s exactly what the Hornets did, twice, trading away Kobe Bryant in 1996 and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander in 2018.
These draft night deals have haunted the franchise ever since, as the Hornets have remained irrelevant while both stars rose to superstardom elsewhere.
In 1996, the Hornets held the 13th pick and selected a skinny 17-year-old guard straight out of Lower Merion High School in Pennsylvania, Kobe Bryant.