Kobe Bryant’s NBA origin story will be retold in With the “8th Pick,” a film exploring the draft-day decisions that changed basketball.
Kobe Bryant and the 1996 NBA Draft take center court in a new Warner Bros. project that dives deep into the pivotal hours that reshaped basketball history.
The studio has secured rights to With the 8th Pick, a spec script written by Alex Sohn and Gavin Johannsen, which zeroes in on the behind-the-scenes decisions that led to Bryant landing with the Los Angeles Lakers instead of the New Jersey Nets.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, the film is being produced by Tim and Trevor White of Star Thrower Entertainment, alongside Ryan Stowell and Gotham Chopra from Religion of Sports, a company co-founded by Tom Brady and Michael Strahan.
Described as a tense draft-day thriller in the spirit of Moneyball and Air, the film unpacks the two weeks leading up to the 1996 NBA Draft.
It focuses on the internal debates within the Nets’ front office, where general manager John Nash and head coach John Calipari reportedly clashed over whether to take the high school phenom with the eighth Pick.
Financial concerns and uncertainty about Bryant’s readiness led the team to pass.
Bryant, who had declared for the draft straight out of Lower Merion High School in Pennsylvania, was ultimately selected 13th overall by the Charlotte Hornets.
He was then traded to the Lakers in a pre-arranged deal involving veteran center Vlade Divac. That decision would launch a 20-year career in Los Angeles, where Bryant became a five-time NBA champion and global icon.
The film avoids covering Bryant’s tragic 2020 death in a helicopter crash, instead focusing on the formative moment that set his career in motion. Producers are still in the early stages of development and have not yet announced a director or cast.
Bryant’s high school career was already legendary before he entered the league. He averaged 30.8 points, 12 rebounds and 6.5 assists per game his senior year and broke Wilt Chamberlain’s Southeastern Pennsylvania scoring record with 2,883 points.
Though heavily recruited by top colleges, he chose to go pro at 17, becoming just the sixth player to jump from high school to the NBA.
With the 8th Pick adds to the growing list of Bryant-focused projects, but this one narrows in on a specific turning point that helped define the modern NBA.
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