Kobe Bryant, in full Kobe Bean Bryant, (born
August 23, 1978, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S.—died January 26, 2020,
Calabasas, California), American professional basketball player, who helped
lead the Los Angeles Lakers of the National Basketball Association (NBA) to
five championships (2000–02 and 2009–10).
Bryant’s father, Joe (“Jelly Bean”) Bryant, was a
professional basketball player who spent eight seasons in the NBA and eight
more playing in Italy, where Bryant went to school. When his family returned to
the United States, Bryant played basketball at Lower Merion High School in
Ardmore, Pennsylvania, where he received several national Player of the Year
awards and broke the southeastern Pennsylvania scoring record set by Wilt
Chamberlain with 2,883 points. Bryant opted to forgo college and declared
himself eligible for the NBA draft when he graduated from high school. The
Charlotte Hornets chose him with the 13th pick of the 1996 draft. He was traded
to the Lakers shortly thereafter and became the second youngest NBA player in
history when the 1996–97 season opened. He quickly proved his merit with the
Lakers and was selected for the NBA All-Star Game in just his second season,
becoming the youngest All-Star.
Bryant was forced to share the role of the Lakers’
star player with his popular and talented teammate Shaquille O’Neal. The two
had an uneasy relationship, but they found success under the leadership of Phil
Jackson, who became coach of the Lakers in 1999. Bryant, a shooting guard, and
O’Neal, a centre, meshed into a remarkably effective combination, and, by the
time Bryant was 23, the Lakers had won three consecutive NBA championships.
After winning their third title in 2002, Bryant
and the Lakers encountered difficulties. In the 2003 playoffs the Lakers were
defeated in the second round. Several months later Bryant was accused of raping
a young woman in Colorado. He maintained his innocence, and all charges were
eventually dropped when the woman refused to testify after a monthslong
campaign of harassment by fans of Bryant and some members of the media. (Bryant
later apologized, admitting that he realized his accuser did not believe their
sexual encounter was consensual, and a civil suit was settled in 2005.) The
incident greatly tarnished his image. Led by Bryant, the Lakers returned to the
finals in 2004, but they were upset by the Detroit Pistons. O’Neal subsequently
was traded, and Bryant emerged as the team’s sole leader.
Bryant led the league in scoring during the 2005–06
and 2006–07 seasons, and in 2008 he was named the league’s MVP for the first
time in his career. Bryant won his fourth NBA title in 2009, and he was named
the finals MVP after averaging a stellar 32.4 points per game in the series. He
led the Lakers to their third straight Western Conference championship in
2009–10, and he was once more named NBA finals MVP after the Lakers defeated
the Boston Celtics in a seven-game series. The Lakers won division titles in
each of the following seasons but were eliminated in the second round of each
postseason. Entering the 2012–13 season, the Lakers added superstars Steve Nash
and Dwight Howard to their lineup and were considered one of the preseason
title favourites, but the disappointing team was barely on pace to qualify for
the final Western Conference playoff spot when Bryant ruptured his Achilles
tendon in April 2013, causing him to miss the rest of the season. (The Lakers
were ultimately the eighth and final playoff seed that season and were swept in
their first series.) He returned to the court in December 2013 but played in
just six games before fracturing his kneecap and missing the remainder of that
season as well. Bryant returned for the beginning of the 2014–15 season before
he was again injured, tearing his rotator cuff in January 2015. He played
almost all of the following season but again struggled, with a career-low .358
shooting percentage while averaging 17.6 points per game, and he retired
following the last regular-season game of the 2015–16 season.
In addition to his professional accomplishments,
he was a member of the gold medal-winning U.S. men’s basketball teams at the
2008 Beijing Olympic Games and the 2012 London Olympic Games. In 2015 Bryant
wrote the poem “Dear Basketball,” and two years later it served as the basis
for a short film of the same name, which he also narrated. The work won an
Academy Award for best animated short film. In 2018 Bryant published the book
The Mamba Mentality: How I Play, in which he described his approach to basketball;
the title reflected a nickname he bestowed upon himself during his playing
days, “The Black Mamba.” On January 26, 2020, Bryant and his 13-year-old
daughter were among a group traveling to a girls basketball game in a
helicopter when it crashed, killing all nine people aboard.
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