Kobe Bryant (1978-2020) American Basketball Player

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Kobe Bryant Wiki, Biography, Family, Life, Age and Death

Short Bio

Olympic Games Gold Medalist Athlete. A perennial National Basketball League All Star, he played his entire career for the Los Angeles Lakers.

During his 20-year career, he won five championships, was named to the All-Star team 18 times, was a 15-time member of the All-NBA Team, a 12-time member of the All-Defensive Team, the NBA Most Valuable Player in 2008, a two-time Olympic Gold Medalist, and an Oscar Winner.

He was the son of NBA player Joe Bryant and started playing basketball when he was three years old.

He was the first Freshman in decades to start for the varsity basketball team at Lower Merion High School in Ardmore, Pennsylvania.

His Junior year he was named Pennsylvania Player of the Year. He ended his high school career as Southeastern Pennsylvania’s all-time leading scorer at 2,883 points, beating the records of Wilt Chamberlain and Lionel Simmons.

Although he drew the interest of college recruiters from Duke University, the University of Michigan, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and Villanova University, he elected to enter the 1996 NBA draft. Originally drafted by the Charlotte Hornets, he was traded to the Lakers.

Kobe Bryant represented the United States at the 2008 and 2012 Olympics where the team won Gold medals, and received an Oscar for the 2017 short “Dear Basketball.” He was killed in a private helicopter crash with eight other people, including his 13 year old daughter Gianna.

Where is Kobe Bryant buried ?

Full Bio

Kobe Bryant American Basketball Player (1978-2020)

Biography

Kobe Bean Bryant was an American professional basketball player. A shooting guard, he spent his entire 20-year career with the Los Angeles Lakers in the National Basketball Association (NBA).

Widely regarded as one of the greatest basketball players of all time,Bryant won five NBA championships, was an 18-time All-Star, a 15-time member of the All-NBA Team, a 12-time member of the All-Defensive Team, the 2008 NBA Most Valuable Player (MVP), and a two-time NBA Finals MVP. Bryant also led the NBA in scoring twice, and ranks fourth in league all-time regular season and postseason scoring. He was posthumously voted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 2020 and named to the NBA 75th Anniversary Team in 2021.

Born in Philadelphia and partly raised in Italy, Bryant was recognized as the top American high-school basketball player while at Lower Merion. The son of former NBA player Joe Bryant, he declared for the 1996 NBA draft and was selected by the Charlotte Hornets with the 13th overall pick; he was then traded to the Lakers. As a rookie, Bryant earned a reputation as a high-flyer by winning the 1997 Slam Dunk Contest, and was named an All-Star by his second season.



Kobe Bryant (1978-2020) American Basketball Player

Despite a feud with teammate Shaquille O’Neal, the pair led the Lakers to three consecutive NBA championships from 2000 to 2002. In 2003, Bryant was charged with sexual assault; criminal charges were dropped after the accuser refused to testify, and a lawsuit was settled out of court, with Bryant issuing a public apology and admitting to a sexual encounter he maintained was consensual.

After the Lakers lost the 2004 NBA Finals, O’Neal was traded and Bryant became the cornerstone of the Lakers. He led the NBA in scoring in the 2005–06 and 2006–07 seasons. On January 22, 2006, he scored a career-high 81 points; the second most points scored in a single NBA game, behind Wilt Chamberlain’s 100-point game. Bryant led the team to consecutive championships in 2009 and 2010, both times being named NBA Finals MVP. He continued to be among the top players in the league through the 2012–13 season, when he suffered a torn achilles tendon at age 34. His next two seasons were cut short by injuries to his knee and shoulder, respectively. Citing physical decline, Bryant retired after the 2015–16 season. In 2017, the Lakers retired both his #8 and #24 jerseys, making him the only player in NBA history to have multiple jerseys retired by the same franchise.

The all-time leading scorer in Lakers history, Bryant was the first guard in NBA history to play 20 seasons. His 18 All-Star designations are the second most all time, and he has the most consecutive appearances as a starter. Bryant’s four NBA All-Star Game MVP Awards are tied with Bob Pettit for the most in NBA history. He gave himself the nickname “Black Mamba” in the mid-2000s, and the epithet became widely adopted by the general public. He won gold medals on the 2008 and 2012 U.S. Olympic teams. In 2018, he won the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film for the film Dear Basketball (2017).

Bryant died, along with his daughter Gianna and seven others, in a helicopter crash in Calabasas, California, in 2020. A number of tributes and memorials were subsequently issued, including renaming the All-Star MVP Award in his honor.

Kobe Bryant (1978-2020) Death

Fans gathered in front of Staples Center on the day of Bryant’s death

Accident

At 9:06 a.m. Pacific Standard Time on January 26, 2020, a Sikorsky S-76 helicopter departed from John Wayne Airport in Orange County, California, with nine people aboard: Bryant, his 13-year-old daughter Gianna, six family friends, and the pilot, Ara Zobayan. The helicopter was registered to the Fillmore-based Island Express Holding Corp., according to the California Secretary of State business database. The group was traveling to Camarillo Airport in Ventura County for a basketball game at Mamba Sports Academy in Thousand Oaks.

Due to light rain and fog that morning, the Los Angeles Police Department helicopters and most other air traffic were grounded. The flight tracker showed that the helicopter circled above the L.A. Zoo due to heavy air traffic in the area. At 9:30 a.m., Zobayan contacted the Burbank Airport’s control tower, notifying the tower of the situation, and was told he was “flying too low” to be tracked by radar. At that time, the helicopter experienced extreme fog and turned south towards the mountains. At 9:40 a.m., the helicopter climbed rapidly from 1,200 to 2,000 feet (370 to 610 m), flying at 161 knots (298 km/h; 185 mph).

Kobe Bryant (1978-2020) American Basketball Player

At 9:45 a.m., the helicopter crashed into the side of a mountain in Calabasas, about 30 miles (48 km) northwest of downtown Los Angeles, and began burning. Bryant, his daughter, and the other seven occupants were all killed on impact. Initial reports indicated that the helicopter crashed in the hills above Calabasas in heavy fog. Witnesses reported hearing a helicopter struggling before crashing.

Investigations

On January 28, Bryant’s identity was officially confirmed using fingerprints. The following day, the Los Angeles County Department of Medical Examiner-Coroner stated that the official cause of death for him and the eight others on the helicopter was blunt force trauma.

The Federal Aviation Administration, National Transportation Safety Board, and the FBI launched investigations into the crash. The cause of the crash was hard to investigate, as the helicopter was not equipped with a black box. Over a year after the crash, on February 9, 2021, the NTSB declared that pilot Ara Zobayan probably became disoriented after deciding to fly into thick clouds. The five board members also said Zobayan, who also died in the crash, ignored his training and violated federal regulations during the 40-minute flight.

Tributes and funeral services

Further information: 2020 Calabasas helicopter crash § Memorials

On February 7, Bryant and his daughter were buried in a private funeral in Pacific View Memorial Park in the Corona del Mar neighborhood of Newport Beach, California. A public memorial service was held on February 24 (2/24, marking both Kobe’s and Gianna’s jersey numbers) at Staples Center with Jimmy Kimmel hosting. Speakers at the service included Vanessa, Jordan, and O’Neal, along with Phoenix Mercury guard Diana Taurasi and Geno Auriemma, Taurasi’s coach at Connecticut, where Gianna had been aspiring to play.

The NBA had postponed the Lakers’ game against the Clippers just two days after the accident on January 28 – the first time an NBA game was postponed for any reason since the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing led to the postponement of a Celtics game. On January 30, the first game after the crash was played at Staples Center between the Clippers and the Kings; the Clippers honored Bryant before the game, with Southern California native Paul George narrating a video tribute to Bryant. The next day, the Lakers played their first game after the crash against the Trail Blazers.

Ahead of the match, the Lakers paid tribute to Bryant and all who lost their lives in the crash with a ceremony held just before tip off, with Usher singing “Amazing Grace” and Boyz II Men singing the National Anthem, while Wiz Khalifa and Charlie Puth reunited to perform “See You Again” – originally their tribute to Paul Walker after his death while filming Furious 7 – at halftime. James also delivered a speech to the crowd before the game, and every player in the Lakers starting lineup was announced with Bryant’s name. The game was the second-most-watched in ESPN history, averaging 4.41 million viewers.

Also, beginning with the Spurs and the Raptors in their game in San Antonio on the day of the crash, teams paid tribute to Bryant at the start of their games with intentional on-court violations referring to his uniform numbers on their first possession – either a 24-second shot clock or an 8-second backcourt violation. On February 15, NBA commissioner Adam Silver announced that the All-Star Game MVP Award would be renamed to the NBA All-Star Game Kobe Bryant Most Valuable Player in Bryant’s honor. In May 2020, the Mamba Sports Academy was renamed to Sports Academy out of respect for Bryant.

The 62nd Annual Grammy Awards went ahead as scheduled at the Staples Center on the day of the crash, but included tributes by multiple artists and groups, including host Alicia Keys opening the show with a tribute speech in which she called Staples Center “the house that Kobe Bryant built” and joining Boyz II Men to sing “It’s So Hard to Say Goodbye to Yesterday”. Bryant also appeared at the start of the In Memoriam segment of the 92nd Academy Awards following his Oscar in 2018 for Dear Basketball, and Spike Lee wore a suit in tribute to him at the ceremony.



 He was not included in the montages at the 2020 VMAs and Emmys, held later in the year. Fans were upset at the omission, especially as actors Naya Rivera and Chadwick Boseman had been featured prominently in both; after Rivera and Boseman’s unexpected deaths in July and August 2020 respectively, the three young black celebrities were popularly compared. The 2020 Pro Bowl was also played at Camping World Stadium in Orlando on the day of the crash, and before kickoff, NFC players who learned of Bryant’s death conducted a prayer led by Seattle Seahawks quarterback Russell Wilson, while various on-field and PA tributes were made during the game.

After the Lakers beat the Miami Heat in Game 6 of the 2020 NBA Finals to clinch the franchise’s 17th NBA championship, rapper, Lakers fan and Long Beach native Snoop Dogg paid homage to Bryant and the Lakers with a full forearm tattoo. Bryant was posthumously inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame in 2021, with Vanessa delivering the acceptance speech on Bryant’s behalf.

Find a Grave Kobe Bryant (1978-2020) American Basketball Player