Not to be pressured with the American soccer participant, Coby Bryant.Kobe Bryant Kobe Bryant
Bryant with the Los Angeles Lakers Kobe Bryant target=”_blank”>Kobe Bryant in 2014BornAugust 23, 1978
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S.DiedJanuary 26, 2020 (elderly forty one)
Calabasas, California, U.S.Listed height6 toes 6 in (1.ninety eight m)[a]Listed weight212 lb (ninety six kg)High schoolLower Merion
(Ardmore, Pennsylvania)NBA draft1996 / Round: 1 / Pick: 13th overallSelected by way of the Kobe Bryant Charlotte HornetsPlaying career1996–2016PositionShooting guardNumber8, 241996–2016Los Angeles Lakers
- 5× NBA champion (2000–2002, 2009, 2010)
- 2× NBA Finals MVP (2009, 2010)
- NBA Most Valuable Player (2008)
- 18× NBA All-Star (1998, 2000–2016)
- 4× NBA All-Star Game MVP (2002, 2007, 2009, 2011)
- eleven× All-NBA First Team (2002–2004, 2006–2013)
- 2× All-NBA Second Team (2000, 2001)
- 2× All-NBA Third Team (1999, 2005)
- nine× NBA All-Defensive First Team (2000, 2003, 2004, 2006–2011)
- three× NBA All-Defensive Second Team (2001, 2002, 2012)
- 2× NBA scoring champion (2006, 2007)
- NBA Slam Dunk Contest champion (Kobe Bryant 1997)
- NBA All-Rookie Second Team (1997)
- NBA seventy fifth Anniversary Team
- Nos. eight & 24 retired with the aid of Los Angeles Lakers
- GKobe Bryant atorade National Player of the Year (1996)
- Naismith Prep Player of the Year (1996)
- McDonald’s All-American (1996)
- First-group Kobe Bryant Parade All-American (1996)
- Fourth-group Parade All-American (1995)
Points33,643 (25.0 ppg)Rebounds7,047 (5.2 rpg)Assists6,306 (four.7 apg)Stats at NBA.comStats at Basketball-Reference.comBasketball Hall of Fame as participant
MedalsMen’s basketballRepresenting the United StatesOlympic Games2008 BeijingTeam2012 LondonTeamFIBA Americas Championship2007 Las VegasTeam
Kobe Bean Bryant ( KOH-bee; August 23, 1978 – January 26, 2020) changed into an American professional basketball player. A taking pictures defend, he spent his entire 20-year profession with the Los Angeles Lakers in the National Basketball Association (NBA). Widely regarded as one of the finest basketball gamers Kobe Bryant and scorers of all time,[3][4][5][6][7][8] Bryant won five NBA championships, became an 18-time All-Star, a fifteen-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 -time NBA Finals MVP. Bryant additionally led the NBA in scoring twice, and ranks fourth in league all-time regular season and postseason scoring. Kobe Bryant He was posthumously voted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 2020 and named to the NBA 75th Anniversary Team in 2021.
The son of former NBA player Joe Bryant, he become born in Philadelphia and in part raised in Italy. Recognized because the top American high-faculty basketball player while at Philadelphia suburb Lower Merion, Bryant declared for the 1996 NBA draft and become selected with the aid of the Charlotte Hornets with the thirteenth standard select; he turned into then traded to the Kobe Bryant Lakers. As a rookie, Bryant earned a popularity as a high-flyer via triumphing the 1997 Slam Dunk Contest, and turned into named an All-Star through his Kobe Bryant second season. 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 become charged with sexual attack;[9] with the alleged sufferer being a 19-year-antique resort worker. Criminal charges were later dropped after the accuser didn’t testify, and a lawsuit was settled out of court, with Bryant issuing a public apology and admitting to a sexual stumble upon he maintained was consensual. The accusation briefly tarnished Bryant’s popularity, resulting Kobe Bryant inside the loss of numerous of his endorsement contracts.[10]
After the Lakers lost the 2004 NBA Finals, O’Neal became traded and Bryant became the cornerstone of the franchise. He led the NBA in scoring inside the 2005–06 and 2006–07 seasons and became named league MVP in 2008. On January 22, 2006, he scored a profession-high 81 points; the second most factors scored in a single NBA recreation, behind Wilt Chamberlain’s one hundred-factor game. Bryant led the crew to consecutive championships in 2009 and 2010, both instances being named NBA Finals MVP. He persisted to be among the pinnacle players in the league thru the 2012–thirteen season, while he suffered a torn achilles tendon at age 34. His subsequent two seasons have been cut short by means of accidents to his knee and shoulder, respectively. Citing physical decline, Bryant retired after the 2015–sixteen season. In 2017, the Lakers retired both his Nos. 8 and 24, making him the only player in NBA history to have a couple of numbers retired by way of the equal franchise.
The all-time leading scorer in Lakers history, Bryant become the primary defend in NBA history to play 20 seasons. His 18 All-Star designations are the second one most all time, and he has the most consecutive appearances as a starter. Bryant’s 4 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 broadly followed by means of the overall public. He won gold medals at the 2008 and 2012 U.S. Olympic groups. In 2018, he received the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film for the movie Dear Basketball (2017).[11]
Bryant died, alongside with his daughter Gianna and seven others, in a helicopter crash in Calabasas, California, in 2020.[12] A quantity of tributes and memorials have been ultimately issued, including renaming the All-Star MVP Award in his honor.[13]Early lifestyles
Bryant turned into born on August23, 1978, in Philadelphia,[14] the youngest of 3 children and the most effective son of Pamela Cox Bryant and previous NBA player Joe Bryant. He became additionally the maternal nephew of NBA participant John “Chubby” Cox.[15] His dad and mom named him after the well-known red meat of Kobe, Japan, which they saw on a restaurant menu.[sixteen][17] His middle name, Bean, was derived from his father’s nickname “Jellybean”.[18] Bryant’s circle of relatives changed into Catholic and he become brought up with this religion.[19][20][21]
Bryant started out playing basketball whilst he become three,[22] and the Lakers were his favourite group while he turned into growing up.[23] When Bryant turned into six, his father retired from the NBA and moved his circle of relatives to Rieti in Italy to retain playing professional basketball.[24][25] After two years, they moved first to Reggio Calabria, then to Pistoia and Reggio Kobe Bryant Emilia. Kobe have become familiar with his new lifestyle and found out to speak fluent Italian.[26] He become particularly keen on Reggio Emilia, which he considered a loving region and wherein some of his fine early life memories have been made.[27][28] Bryant started to play basketball significantly at the same time as dwelling in Reggio Emilia.[29][30] Bryant’s grandfather could mail him videos of NBA games for Bryant to examine.[31] Another Kobe Bryant supply of idea was animated European movies about sports activities, from which he learned greater approximately basketball.[32] From Kobe Bryant 1987 to 1989, his father performed for Olimpia Basket Pistoia wherein he paired with former Detroit Pistons Leon Douglas.Kobe Kobe Bryant might paintings on the games as a ball and mop boy and could practice capturing at halftime, with Douglas sharing, “At each one in every of our games at halftime, it become the Kobe show.He’d get accessible and get his shot up.We’d come out of the locker room at halftime and have to chase him off the court docket”.[33]
Bryant additionally learned to play soccer, and his favored soccer crew was A.C. Milan.[34][35] During summers, Bryant could come returned to the US to play in a basketball summer time league.[36] When Bryant become thirteen, he and his family moved Kobe Bryant lower back to Philadelphia, wherein he enrolled in 8th grade at Bala Cynwyd Middle School.[26][37]High faculty (1992–1996)
Bryant’s retired No. 33 jersey and banner at the Lower Merion High School health club
Bryant earned country wide reputation all through a impressive high-college career at Lower Merion High School in Ardmore, placed in the Philadelphia suburb of Lower Merion. He played on the varsity basketball crew as a freshman.[38] Bryant have become the primary freshman in decades to begin for Lower Merion’s varsity crew, however the group completed with a 4–20 report.[38][39] The following 3 years, the Aces compiled a 77–thirteen record, with Bryant playing all 5 positions.[38] During his junior yr, he averaged 31.1 points, 10.4 rebounds, 5.2 assists, three.8 blocks and 2.3 steals[forty] and was named Pennsylvania Player of the Year at the same time as also incomes a fourth-team Parade All-American nomination,[forty one][forty two] attracting attention from college recruiters in the process.[forty one] Duke, Michigan, North Carolina and Villanova have been on the top of his listing. However, after excessive schooler Kevin Garnett went inside the first spherical of the 1995 NBA draft, Bryant additionally commenced considering going at once to the pros.[forty one]