Kobe Bryant’s NBA origin story shall be retold in With the “eighth Decide,” a movie exploring the draft-day choices that modified basketball.
Kobe Bryant and the 1996 NBA Draft take heart courtroom in a brand new Warner Bros. venture that dives deep into the pivotal hours that reshaped basketball historical past.
The studio has secured rights to With the eighth Decide, a spec script written by Alex Sohn and Gavin Johannsen, which zeroes in on the behind-the-scenes choices that led to Bryant touchdown with the Los Angeles Lakers as a substitute of the New Jersey Nets.
In line with The Hollywood Reporter, the movie is being produced by Tim and Trevor White of Star Thrower Leisure, alongside Ryan Stowell and Gotham Chopra from Faith of Sports activities, an organization co-founded by Tom Brady and Michael Strahan.
Described as a tense draft-day thriller within the spirit of Moneyball and Air, the movie unpacks the 2 weeks main as much as the 1996 NBA Draft.
It focuses on the interior debates inside the Nets’ entrance workplace, the place common supervisor John Nash and head coach John Calipari reportedly clashed over whether or not to take the highschool phenom with the eighth Decide.
Monetary issues and uncertainty about Bryant’s readiness led the workforce to cross.
Bryant, who had declared for the draft straight out of Decrease Merion Excessive Faculty in Pennsylvania, was in the end chosen thirteenth total by the Charlotte Hornets.
He was then traded to the Lakers in a pre-arranged deal involving veteran heart Vlade Divac. That call would launch a 20-year profession in Los Angeles, the place Bryant turned a five-time NBA champion and world icon.
The movie avoids masking Bryant’s tragic 2020 loss of life in a helicopter crash, as a substitute specializing in the formative second that set his profession in movement. Producers are nonetheless within the early phases of improvement and haven’t but introduced a director or solid.
Bryant’s highschool profession was already legendary earlier than he entered the league. He averaged 30.8 factors, 12 rebounds and 6.5 assists per sport his senior 12 months and broke Wilt Chamberlain’s Southeastern Pennsylvania scoring file with 2,883 factors.
Although closely recruited by high faculties, he selected to go professional at 17, turning into simply the sixth participant to leap from highschool to the NBA.
With the eighth Decide provides to the rising checklist of Bryant-focused initiatives, however this one narrows in on a selected turning level that helped outline the trendy NBA.
