Final Woj Bomb Reveals Knicks Nearly Landed Kobe Bryant

One last Woj bomb may have New York Knicks fans going nuclear.

Thursday gave basketball fans a chance to celebrate the impact of former NBA insider Adrian Wojnarowski: having retired shortly before this season tipped off, Wojnarowski was the subject of a Sports Illustrated profile penned by Chris Mannix of SI and he was also a guest on Carmelo Anthony’s “7PM in Brooklyn” web series, a Wave Sports + Entertainment Original.

In discuss the famous breaking stories of his career with Anthony and co-hosts Kazeem Famuyide and The Kid Mero, Wojnarowski revealed that late NBA legend Kobe Bryant had always harbored a dream of playing with the Knicks.

“I remember there was a time where he was convinced he was going to end up with the Knicks,” Wojnarowski said, recalling a conversation he had with Bryant at Staples Center in Los Angeles. “When Jim Buss was running the Lakers, I remember sitting there with Kobe down in Orange County, I think [Bryant’s trainer] Tim Grover was with us, and I remember him saying, ‘[the Lakers] are going to amnesty me.'”

“I said ‘Kobe, the Lakers are not amnestying you … He said ‘they’re going to amnesty me, nobody’s going to claim me on waivers, and I’m going to sign with the Knicks.’ … [I said] they’re not going to amnesty you. They’ll burn this city down. He loved the Lakers and he only ever really wanted to be there but he would fantasize—he loved [Madison Square] Garden.”

Wojnarowski, now the general manager for the men’s basketball program at his alma mater of St. Bonaventure, said that Bryant had been talking with Anthony at the time, telling him to “stop apologizing” for his suposed role in the ongoing feud with then-Knicks president Phil Jackson. That would place such a story between 2014 and 2017, which culminated in Jackson’s ousting and Anthony’s eventual move to the Oklahoma City Thunder.

Bryant spent the entirety of his 20-year NBA career with the Los Angeles Lakers, winning five NBA titles and countless accolades in that storied span. That, of course, didn’t stop him from making basketball history at Madison Square Garden.

In 2007, Bryant became the youngest player to score 20,000 points in his career, earning the magic marks at MSG. Less than two years later, Bryant scored 61 points in another game against the Knicks to set an MSG record for most in a single game, though the mark was broken by Anthony himself in 2014.

Bryant previously hinted at his metropolitan desires in a 2019 interview with Frank Isola, then of The Athletic.

“I always kind of dreamed about playing in New York and what that would have been like. It’s true. As a fan, the Garden was the historical arena,” Bryant said. “I always wanted to be a part of that history and play in it. So, New York was a team … it would have been pretty good to play in that city.”

In another Knicks note, Wojnarowski further revealed to Mannix that he could’ve been the first to break the famous deal that sent Karl-Anthony Towns to Manhattan. Wojnarowski, however, was well on his way to his new endeavor with the Bonnies, who are off to an 8-1 start in his first season of supervision.

“Congratulations,” Wojnarowski told his source. “But I don’t give a s—.”

Make sure you bookmark Knicks on SI for the latest news, exclusive interviews, film breakdowns and so much more!