Kobe Bean Bryant (born August 23, 1978 – January 26, 202), often known monotonously as Kobe, is an American former professional basketball player. He played his entire 20-year career with the Los Angeles Lakers of the National Basketball Association (NBA). He entered the NBA directly from high school and won five NBA championships. Bryant is an 18-time All-Star, 15-time member of the All-NBA Team, and 12-time member of the All-Defensive team. He led the NBA in scoring during two seasons and ranks third on the league’s all-time regular season scoring and fourth on the all-time postseason scoring list. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest basketball players of all time. Bryant is the first guard in NBA history to play at least 20 seasons.Bryant is the son of former NBA player Joe Bryant. He enjoyed a successful high school basketball career at Lower Merion High School in Pennsylvania, where he was recognized as the top high school basketball player in the country. Upon graduation, he declared for the 1996 NBA draft and was selected by the Charlotte Hornets with the 13th overall pick; the Hornets then traded him to the Lakers. As a rookie, Bryant earned himself a reputation as a high-flyer and a fan favorite by winning the 1997 Slam Dunk Contest, and he was named an All-Star by his second season. Despite a feud between the two players, Bryant and Shaquille O’Neal led the Lakers to three consecutive NBA championships from 2000 to 2002.In 2003, Bryant was accused of sexual assault, but the charges were eventually dropped and a civil suit was settled out of court. After the Lakers lost the 2004 NBA Finals, O’Neal was traded to the Miami Heat and Bryant became the cornerstone of the Lakers. He led the NBA in scoring during the 2005–06 and 2006–07 seasons. In 2006, he scored a career-high 81 points against the Toronto Raptors, the second most points scored in a single game in league history behind Wilt Chamberlain’s 100-point game in 1962. Bryant was awarded the regular season’s Most Valuable Player Award (MVP) in 2008. After the Lakers lost in the 2008 NBA Finals, Bryant led the team to two consecutive championships in 2009 and 2010, earning the Finals MVP Award on both occasions. He continued to be among the top players in the league through 2013, when he suffered a torn Achilles tendon at age 34. Although he recovered from that injury, he suffered season-ending injuries to his knee and shoulder, respectively, in the following two seasons. Citing his physical decline, Bryant retired after the 2015–16 season.At 34 years and 104 days of age, Bryant became the youngest player in league history to reach 30,000 career points. He became the all-time leading scorer in Lakers franchise history on February 1, 2010, when he surpassed Jerry West. During his third year in the league, Bryant was chosen to start the All-Star Game, and he would continue to be selected to start that game for a record 18 consecutive appearances until his retirement. His four All-Star MVP Awards are tied for the most in NBA history. At the 2008 and 2012 Summer Olympics, he won gold medals as a member of the U.S. national team. In 2018, Bryant won the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film for his film Dear Basketball.Kobe Bean Bryant was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania as the youngest of three children and the only son of former NBA player and former WNBA head coach Joe “Jellybean” Bryant and Pamela Cox Bryant. He is also the maternal nephew of John “Chubby” Cox. His parents named him after the famous beef of Kobe, Japan. He started playing basketball when he was 3 years old, and his grandfather would mail him videos of NBA games, which Bryant would study.When Bryant was six, his father moved his family to Italy to play professional basketball. Bryant became accustomed to his new lifestyle and learned to speak Italian and Spanish fluently. During summers, Bryant would come back to the United States to play summer league basketball and he also learned to play soccer. In 1991, the Bryant family moved back to the United States. Bryant earned national recognition during a spectacular high school career at Lower Merion High School near Philadelphia.As a freshman, he played for the varsity (junior and senior) basketball team. His father coached him his sophomore year of high school with Bryant playing all five positions. At Adidas ABCD camp, Bryant earned the 1995 senior MVP award, while playing alongside future NBA teammate Lamar Odom. He ended his career as Southeastern Pennsylvania’s all-time leading scorer at 2,883 points, surpassing both Wilt Chamberlain and Lionel Simmons, Lower Merion alumni. Bryant received several awards for his performance his senior year including being named Naismith High School Player of the Year, Gatorade Men’s National Basketball Player of the Year, a McDonald’s All-American, and a All-USA First Team player. In 1996, Bryant took singer and friend Brandy Norwood to his senior prom.His SAT score of 1080 would have ensured his college basketball scholarship. Bryant made the decision to go directly into the NBA, only the sixth player in NBA history to do so. Bryant’s news was met with a lot of publicity at a time when prep-to-pro NBA players were not very common. Bryant said that had he decided to go to college after high school, he would have attended Duke University.The first guard to ever be taken out of high school, Bryant was chosen as the 13th overall draft pick by the Charlotte Hornets in 1996. However, the Hornets’ head scout at the time agreed to trade their draft selection to the Lakers the day before the draft. The Lakers didn’t tell the Hornets whom to select until five minutes before the pick was made. On July 1, 1996, West traded his starting center, Vlade Divac, to the Hornets in exchange for Bryant’s draft rights. Since he was still 17 at the time of the draft, his parents had to cosign his contract with the Lakers until he was able to sign his own when he turned 18 before the season began.Bryant is a shooting guard who can play small forward too. He is considered one of the most complete players in the NBA, has been selected to every All-NBA Team since 1999. He is a creative scorer, averaging 25.3 points per game for his career, along with 5.3 rebounds, 4.7 assists, and 1.5 steals (as of the end of the 2009–2010 regular season). He shares the single-game NBA record for three pointers made with twelve and he a standout defender, having made the All-Defensive first or second team ten of the last eleven seasons.In 1999, Bryant met 17-year-old Vanessa Laine while she was working as a background dancer on the Tha Eastsidaz music video “G’d Up”. Bryant was in the building working on his debut musical album, which was never released. The two began dating and became engaged just six months later in May 2000, while Laine was still a senior at Marina High School in Huntington Beach, California. They married on April 18, 2001, Bryant’s parents, his two sisters, longtime advisor and agent Arn Tellem, nor Bryant’s Laker teammates attended. Bryant’s parents were opposed to the marriage for a number of reasons. Reportedly Bryant’s parents had problems with him marrying so young, especially to a woman who was not African American. This disagreement resulted in an estrangement period, which ended when Bryant had his first daughter. The Bryants’ first child is Natalia Diamante Bryant. Vanessa Bryant suffered a miscarriage in the spring of 2005. Their second daughter is Gianna Maria-Onore Bryant.In the summer of 2003, Bryant was arrested in connection with a sexual assault complaint filed by 19-year old hotel employee Katelyn Faber. Bryant had checked into The Lodge and Spa at Cordillera hotel in advance of undergoing knee surgery nearby. Faber accused Bryant of raping her in his hotel room the night before Bryant was to have the procedure. Bryant admitted an adulterous sexual encounter with his accuser, but denied her sexual assault allegation. In September 2004, prosecutors dropped the assault case after Faber refused to testify in the trial. Afterward, Bryant agreed to apologize to Faber for the incident, including his public mea culpa: “Although I truly believe this encounter between us was consensual, I recognize now that she did not and does not view this incident the same way I did.” Faber filed a separate civil lawsuit against Bryant, which the two sides ultimately settled with the specific terms of the settlement being undisclosed to the public.Bryant is the official ambassador for After-School All-Stars (ASAS), an American non-profit organization that provides comprehensive after-school programs to children in 13 US cities. Bryant also started the Kobe Bryant China Fund, which will partner with the Soong Ching Ling Foundation, a charity backed by the Chinese government. The Kobe Bryant China Fund will raise money within China earmarked for education and health programs. Bryant has won five NBA World Championships with the Los Angeles Lakers: 2000, 2001, 2002, 2009 and 2010. Bryant has been injured off and on since 2012 and is in his mid 30’s. He played until the end of the 2015/16 season with the Lakers. On April 13, 2016, Bryant played his final NBA game against the Utah Jazz, scoring a season-high 60 points.In November 1999, 21-year-old Bryant met 17-year-old Vanessa Laine while she was working as a background dancer on the Tha Eastsidaz music video “G’d Up”. Bryant was in the building and working on his debut musical album. The two began dating and became engaged just six months later in May 2000, while Laine was still a senior at Marina High School in Huntington Beach, California. To avoid media scrutiny, she finished high school through independent study. According to Vanessa’s cousin Laila Laine, there was no prenuptial agreement. Vanessa said Bryant “loved her too much for one”.They married on April 18, 2001, at St. Edward the Confessor Catholic Church in Dana Point, California. The wedding was not attended by Bryant’s parents, his two sisters, his longtime advisor and agent Arn Tellem, or his Laker teammates. Bryant’s parents were opposed to the marriage for a number of reasons. Reportedly Bryant’s parents had problems with him marrying so young, especially to a woman who was not African-American. This disagreement resulted in an estrangement period of over two years, which ended when the couple’s first daughter was born.In 2013, Bryant had a legal disagreement with an auction house over memorabilia from his early years that his mother intended to auction. Pamela Bryant received $450,000 from the auction house for the items and claimed Bryant had given her the rights to the items he had remaining in her home. However, his lawyers asked the auction house to return the items to Bryant. Before the scheduled trial, a settlement was reached allowing the sale of less than 10% of the original items. Bryant’s parents apologized to him in a written statement, which also acknowledged the financial support Bryant had provided them in the past.In January 2002, Bryant bought a Mediterranean-style house for $4 million, located on a cul-de-sac in Newport Coast, Newport Beach. He sold the house in May 2015.The Bryants’ first child, a daughter, was born in January 2003. The birth influenced Bryant to reconcile his differences with his parents. Due to an ectopic pregnancy, Vanessa suffered a miscarriage in the spring of 2005. Their second daughter was born in May 2006. On December 16, 2011, Vanessa Bryant filed for divorce, citing irreconcilable differences, and the couple requested joint custody of their daughters. On January 11, 2013, Bryant and his wife both announced via social media that they had called off their divorce.In an early 2007 interview, it was revealed that Bryant still speaks Italian fluently. He has also conducted press interviews in Spanish. Bryant assigned himself the nickname of “Black Mamba”, citing a desire for his basketball skills to mimic the eponymous snake’s ability to “strike with 99% accuracy at maximum speed, in rapid succession.” During the 2012–13 season, he began referring to himself as “vino” to describe how his play had been aging like a fine wine.In early December 2016, Vanessa gave birth to their third daughter, and in January 2019 the Bryants announced they were expecting a fourth daughter. The daughter, named after himself, was born in June 2019.Bryant is a lifelong fan of his hometown NFL team, the Philadelphia Eagles.Kobe Bryant and his daughter, Gigi passed away in a helicopter crash on January 26, 2020.
Written by Dianne Washington