76ers exec admits he proposed to trade Stackhouse for Kobe on Draft night: "He was a first-time GM, I understand"

Heading to the 1996 NBA Draft, Kobe Bryant hoped that he would end up with the Philadelphia 76ers . After all, he was born in Philly and played high school basketball at Lower Merion High.

Sixers exec Tony DiLeo, who had seen Kobe play in Lower Merion and prepared him for his 76ers pre-draft workout, was convinced that the 17-year-old HS phenom was the real deal. However, Philly was drafted first overall in 1996, and Georgetown's Allen Iverson was the consensus No.1 pick.

After naturally failing to convince the Sixers to pick Kobe at No.1, he proposed to Sixers GM Brad Greenberg that they trade incoming sophomore guard Jerry Stackhouse for a lottery pick that would net them Bryant. However, Greenberg wasn't too interested in DiLeo's plan.

"We discussed it," DiLeo said via SLAM . "I don't think Brad was comfortable with it. He was a first-time GM. I understand."

Taking Kobe was too big of a risk back then

Greenberg was the Portland Trail Blazers' Director of Player Personnel from 1989 to 1995. In May 1996, he took the job of General Manager and Vice President of Basketball Operations. With the NBA Draft just one month after he assumed his new position, there was no way Brad would take a massive risk.

The Sixers had just drafted Stackhouse one year earlier, and he was one of his class's top rookies. Jerry averaged 19.2 PPG as a freshman while starting 71 games and was named to the All-Rookie first team.

Trading him for a high school senior would have meant setting the team's timeline back. Greenberg already had a 20-point scoring starter in Jerry, who could provide Iverson immediate help. Taking KB would mean a couple of years of waiting for the kid to develop into a star, which could mean more losing seasons.

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Bean's HS coach also talked to Brad

Interestingly, it wasn't just DiLeo who tried to convince Greenberg to get Kobe to the Sixers. Former Lower Merion High assistant coach Mike Egan went out of his way to persuade him that Bryant was the best player in the Draft .

"We know that it was something special in front of us to the point when the day before the draft in 1996, we're heading to the draft, and I called the Sixers, talked to Seth Greenberg, the Sixers general manager at the time, and I said, 'Look, he's the best player in the draft.' I mean, they're pretty locked in on Allen Iverson at the time, and it was unusual to take a high school kid then, but I said, 'I'm a basketball guy, followed the Sixers my whole life,'" Egan said in 2020.

The Sixers ended up taking Iverson with the top pick, which was really the right choice to make in 1996. However, if only Greenberg had taken a leap of faith by offering Stackhouse for a pick that would land them Kobe, the 76ers could have had both A.I. and The Black Mamba. Not to say that it would have guaranteed championships, but it would have been one of the most intriguing pairings of all time.

Related: Kobe wanted to be drafted by his hometown 76ers: "I was hoping that, but at that time Iverson was such a force"