8B
Friday, October 18, 1996
UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
ALL SPORT
In his preseason debut, 18-year-old basketball rookie Kobe Bryant scored 10 points for the Los Angeles Lakers. Bryant made all four of the shots he attempted Wednesday night.
Kobe Bryant hits floor for first time Wednesday night
Teen-ager starts new life with Lakers
The Associated Press
FRESNO, Calif. — Teen-ager Kobe Bryant apparently needed a reminder of just how much his life has changed in a few months, so Los Angeles Lakers coach Del Harris gave him one.
"Hey, pass the ball. This isn't high school any more," Harris snapped, after Bryant lost the ball in his NBA debut Wednesday night.
That turnover was about the only thing Bryant, 18, did wrong in the Lakers' 90-80 win over the Dallas Mavericks. He hit all four of his shots — including a 3-
pointer and a running dunk and added two assists.
The 10-point performance earned Bryant, who jumped from high school directly to the pros, a serenade and a light-hearted lecture from teammate Shaquille O'Neal.
O'Neal and the rest of the Lakers already had dubbed Bryant "Showboat" before the youngster made his first appearance.
"I believe that Showboat is the future," O'Neal said in the locker room after the game, just before he jokingly advised Bryant to stop giving interviews and hit the showers.
Bryant, who averaged 31 points a game last season for Lower Merion High School in Ardmore, Pa., missed the Lakers' first two exhibition games after fracturing his left wrist in a pickup game before training
Many of the 10,274 fans at Sell- and Arena chanted "Ko-be, Kobe" in unison, and a few gave him a standing ovation as he took the court for the first time with 7 minutes, 49 seconds left in the second quarter Wednesday.
camp.
He immediately mishandled the ball, but recovered and passed to Sean Rooks under the basket for an easy bucket. A few seconds later, his sneaker came off and he fumbled to put it back on while play continued.
After those initial signs of nervousness, he seemed comfortable and controlled — despite constant positioning instructions yelled from the Laker bench by Harris.
"It was like a half-semester at college tonight, it was good for him," Harris said. "He made
some mistakes, and he did some good things."
Bryant's first points came on a three-pointer in the second quarter. He added six points in the final minutes of the game on a smooth turnaround jumper, a breakaway dunk and a 16-foot jump shot.
He thought of creating something spectacular on the dunk, but eschewed his nickname, and went somewhat conservative at the last second.
"I was going to try to do something nasty," he said. "But I chilled and did it with two hands."
The reviews from his teammates were mostly positive.
"He shot the ball pretty well. He's real active. As far as offense, he needs to be more patient and let the action come to him," guard Nick Van Exel
said.
"Im glad Showboat did well," O'Neal said, who at the age of 24 is a grizzled NBA veteran compared to Bryant. "Experience is going to be the best thing for Showboat."
Bryant said his timing was off, and admitted he should have swung the ball to a teammate rather than losing it out of bounds and incurring Harris' wrath late in the game.
"I'm not going to treat him any different because he's 18. I'm an equal opportunity mean guy when it comes to that," Harris said.
"That's going to happen with him because in high school he was called on to handle the ball all the time," he said. "Here, we don't want anyone to dominate the ball. He understands it's just forming new habits, that's all."
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