Heisler: The Suns were sitting at 15, ready. Danny Ainge was the Suns' [assistant] coach at the time. He tried to make a deal with Golden State at 11 to move up to take Kobe. Years later he was still incredulous that they turned him down to draft some white guy [Todd Fuller] from the ACC. After the Hornets took Kobe at 13 and the deal with the Lakers was announced, Ainge was the first one to put it all together. He turned to everyone inside the Suns' war room and said, "Oh my God, they've got Kobe and Shaq."
Coincidentally, a few weeks earlier, when Kobe worked out for Boston, he was matched up against Johnson, Cooper's nemesis, who was then an assistant coach with the Celtics. The results were very similar, and timeless: Age yields to youth. In his Boston workout and especially in his interview with team execs, Kobe wowed the entire Celtics organization, all the way up to team president Red Auerbach himself.
Heisler: Kobe was pretty OK going to the Nets, until he came out west for his Lakers workouts. Now Kobe's hanging out with Ryan West and eating dinner at the Wests' house and he's part of the family. This was the most important part of this whole thing: Every team that brought in Kobe -- the Clippers, the Suns and others -- they all said it was the greatest workout they had ever seen and immediately started trying to make moves to get him. But at that point Kobe decided he wanted to be a Laker, and he didn't want to be anything else. The big thing they had to do was shake New Jersey.
https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/30957423/kobe-bryant-jerry-west-draft-workout-changed-nba-history
Lots of fun snippets, including all the subterfuge to shake Calipari and the Nets
Apparently the other threats to Kobe to the Lakers (after the Nets) were:
1. Celtics at #6
2. Clippers at #7
3. Suns trading up
4. Divac saying no/Charlotte reneging
