Even though it's been almost 20 years now since the Charlotte Hornets traded him to the Los Angeles Lakers shortly after drafting him in the 1996 NBA Draft, Kobe Bryant hasn't gotten over the feeling of being traded on draft night. He let the world know about it earlier this summer. And apparently, he sees a lot of similarities between him getting traded back in 1996 and Andrew Wiggins getting traded by the Cavaliers to the Timberwolves this year.
According to reports, Kobe just spoke about the proposed deal that will send Wiggins to the Timberwolves in exchange for Kevin Love later this month and he thinks the Cavs are making a mistake. In fact, he thinks NBA fans might be talking about what a big mistake it was 20 years from now, just like they talk about what a big mistake it was for Charlotte to trade Kobe back in 1996:
It is important to remember that Kobe's situation was a lot different than Wiggins' situation is right now. For instance, when the Hornets traded Kobe, they didn't have the best player in the league on their team already. They also didn't have a short window of time to make that player happy so that he would sign on to stay with the team later. So you can't really compare Kobe's trade to Wiggins' trade.
But it's still interesting to hear what Kobe had to say about Wiggins. And who knows? If Wiggins blossoms into a superstar with the T'wolves, Kobe could end up looking really smart later. We'll just have to wait and see how it plays out when Wiggins heads to Minnesota.
[via @2014MrBasket]
