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NBA players switch teams all the time, whether via trades or free agency. That 's why when the Los Angeles Lakers (via the Charlotte Hornets) drafted a 17-year-old named Kobe Bryant with the 13th overall selection in the 1996 NBA draft, few thought that just over 19 years later that he would be announcing his retirement after spending his entire career suiting up for the purple and gold.
That is just what happened however, with Bryant telling the world that the 2015-16 season would be his last in the NBA via a heartfelt poem in the Player's Tribune on Sunday afternoon. It is hard to guess that any player would make it 20 years in the NBA, but former Lakers play-by-play great and basketball announcing legend Chick Hearn did just that, predicting Bryant had "19 or 20 years to play with the Lakers" during an old interview with a much younger Kobe:
It turns out in addition to being arguably the best live broadcaster of all-time, Chick may have also had precognitive abilities.