what team did kobe bryant play for first?
Los Angeles Lakers
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 The selection of center Sam Bowie with the No. 2 pick in the 1984 NBA draft over Michael Jordan ( who was then drafted by the Chicago Bulls ) ; other notable players taken later in that draft include future Hall @-@ of @-@ Famers Charles Barkley and John Stockton . 

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 When Yao decided to enter the 2002 NBA draft , a group of advisers was formed that came to be known as " Team Yao " . The team consisted of Yao ’ s negotiator , Erik Zhang ; his NBA agent , Bill Duffy ; his Chinese agent , Lu Hao ; University of Chicago economics professor John Huizinga ; and the vice president for marketing at BDA Sports Management , Bill Sanders . Yao was widely predicted to be picked number one overall . However , some teams were concerned about Yao 's NBA eligibility because of uncertainty over whether the CBA would let Yao play in the United States . 

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 Branch Rickey , president and general manager of the Brooklyn Dodgers , began making efforts to introduce a black baseball player to the previously all @-@ white professional baseball leagues in the mid @-@ 1940s . He selected Jackie Robinson from a list of promising Negro league players . After obtaining a commitment from Robinson to " turn the other cheek " to any racial antagonism directed at him , Rickey agreed to sign him to a contract for $ 600 a month . In what was later referred to as " The Noble Experiment " , Robinson was the first black baseball player in the International League since the 1880s , joining the Dodgers ' farm club , the Montreal Royals , for the 1946 season . 

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 Franchises in the National League , the major professional baseball league at the time , wanted the best players available to them . Therefore , in 1890 , Young signed with the Cleveland Spiders , a team which had moved from the American Association to the National League the previous year . 

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 By early April , most NBA draft analysts thought he would be selected in the second round , but Larry Butler , his former AAU coach with the Illinois Warriors , thought he might go late in the first round . 
