The Time The Cleveland Cavaliers Passed On Kobe Bryant And Steve Nash In The Draft

The Cleveland Cavaliers could have had Kobe Bryant or Steve Nash. Instead, they selected Vitaly Potapenko.

Did you know that the Cleveland Cavaliers’s assistant director of player development, Vitaly Potapenko, was selected ahead of Kobe Bryant and Steve Nash in the 1996 NBA Draft. Selected by none other than the Cleveland Cavaliers themselves?

Listen to the comments during the draft and you wouldn’t think the Cleveland Cavaliers made a mistake at all.

It’s a strange tale, one where the pick acquired to get Potapenko required the Cleveland Cavaliers to trade Mark Price. That’s right, Price, who would finish his Cavs career in the franchise’s top-10 of every major statistical category.

Potapenko, a Ukaranian center who dominated in two years at Wright State, was traded by the Cleveland Cavaliers 17 games into his third season. The pick the Cleveland Cavaliers acquired in the trade was ultimately used to select Andre Miller, one of the better floor generals the NBA has seen.

The “Ukraine Train”, as he was known, came into the league a year after Arvydas Sabonis, a Lithuanian legend who made the Hall of Fame for his talents as much as trail blazing a path for European players to enter the NBA. He was also selected eight picks before the Cleveland Cavaliers selected Zydrunas Ilgauskus, a two-time All-Star who wasn’t only a fan favorite in Cleveland but one of LeBron James‘ favorite teammates of all-time.

In Cleveland, he was a backup but showed a good faceup game and mobility. He was strong and a good post defender that used his size and length well to contest shots. The problems were that he couldn’t catch the ball (at the NBA-level) and he couldn’t get any vertical lift. Potapenko was also known for his work ethic and camaraderie.

Mike Fratello, who was the head coach of the Cleveland Cavaliers while Potapenko was there is credited for Potapenko’s early development on defense.

In a story for the Cleveland Cavaliers team site, Joe Gabriele gathered this quote from Potapenko regarding how Fratello helped him develop:

"He was tough, not only on me, but on most of the young guys. He was tough, but I’m very thankful for him. He was a very, very good coach. Very detail-oriented, very disciplined.A big compliment to Mike Fratello and his staff (was) when I got traded to Boston. After a couple games, Rick Pitino said to me: ‘You play defense like a 10-year vet.’ And that was thanks to the three years I was here with Fratello.So I’m thankful that I had a coach like him. He was tough on me. One mistake, one defensive breakdown and he’d take me out. At the time, I’d get mad, obviously. But then I was thankful that he didn’t give me any leeway, He helped me grow up faster."

Fratello obviously had an impact on Potapenko’s viewpoint on the game and on player development in general, in my opinion.

While Potapenko didn’t pan out as a world-class center, he did have eight solid seasons of as a backup and starter basketball in his 11-year career. The fact that he was traded shouldn’t be seen as an indictment on his talents, as he was traded for a guaranteed lottery pick.

What is unfortunate is that the Cleveland Cavaliers could have selected Bryant or Nash with that pick.

Bryant and Nash, two future Hall of Fame players, made an enormous impact on the league in long NBA careers.

Bryant will go down as one of the three best shooting guards in NBA history and will be known for his maniacal drive to win. Nash, who is third all-time in career assists, will be known for his flashy passes and what was a very high basketball IQ.

Both players have legacies that are more valuable than Potapenko’s or even Miller’s.

While fans ultimately can question if the Cleveland Cavaliers would have been able to select James with a player like Bryant or Nash on the team and surely driving them away from the top pick in the 2003 NBA Draft, there are a number of moves that could have been made within that seven-year frame that allowed them to select James, including trading Bryant or Nash.

The fact that they didn’t address the guard position in particular is a curious one as at the time, Terrell Brandon was their only big threat in the backcourt after trading Price. Brandon was later part of a three-team trade that landed the Cleveland Cavaliers Shawn Kemp as Derek Anderson was chosen in the lottery the following year.

In any case, the Cleveland Cavaliers missed out on acquiring extraordinary talents and possibly what could have been the franchise’s first title. At least the hometown hero finally came along to save the day.

Since 2013, Potapenko has worked with the Cleveland Cavaliers big men, specifically, in his role with the team.

The strides that Tristan Thompson and Kevin Love have made on both ends of the court can largely attributed to his work with them. So too can Channing Frye‘s, whose game has already been defined as that of a shooting big but still manages to dip into his bag of tricks and bring out a nice post move. Defensively, Frye has also done decently as a rim-protector although his lack of foot speed gets exposed at times, as he jumps out to contest shots on the perimeter.

While fans may wish the Cleveland Cavaliers drafted someone else with the 12th pick in the 1996 NBA Draft, they probably couldn’t have asked for a better coach to help develop big men than a player who was selected in the lottery because he had great size, brute strength and a solid faceup game.

What do you think of the Cleveland Cavaliers passing up on Kobe Bryant and Steve Nash in the draft to select Vitaly Potapenko? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section or Twitter @KJG_NBA.