Kobe Bryant had a 20-year career in the NBA, all of it with the league’s most glamorous team, the Los Angeles Lakers, with whom he signed his first contract when he was only 17. Five NBA championships and one Most Valuable Player (MVP) award later, he retired with the third-highest total of points in league history, 33,643, the youngest player to cross that 30,000 barrier; his total was overtaken by Lebron James on the day before Bryant died.
Born in Philadelphia and partly raised in Italy, Bry... moreKobe Bryant had a 20-year career in the NBA, all of it with the league’s most glamorous team, the Los Angeles Lakers, with whom he signed his first contract when he was only 17. Five NBA championships and one Most Valuable Player (MVP) award later, he retired with the third-highest total of points in league history, 33,643, the youngest player to cross that 30,000 barrier; his total was overtaken by Lebron James on the day before Bryant died.
Born in Philadelphia and partly raised in Italy, Bryant grew up on basketball. His father, Joe “Jellybean” Bryant, a former NBA player, played at La Salle University in Philadelphia, and then for the first half of an eight-year NBA career for the Philadelphia 76ers. After the NBA Joe played another eight years in Europe, seven of them in Italy, and though Kobe was born in Philadelphia, he spent much of his childhood in Italy, adopting Milan as his favorite football team and learning Italian. On return, Bryant was recognized as the top high-school basketball player in the U.S. while at Lower Merion High School in Pennsylvania and declared for the 1996 NBA draft after graduation, and was selected by the Charlotte Hornets with the 13th overall pick; the Hornets then traded him to the Lakers. It was rare, then, for players to arrive in the NBA straight from high school, but Bryant made sure the Lakers didn’t regret their choice. By the 2000s, he was a star, part of a dominating team alongside Shaquille O’Neal.
In 2004 season after O'Neal left, Bryant became the cornerstone of the Lakers. In 2006, he played one of the NBA’s highest-scoring games of all time, with 81 points. It was second only to Wilt Chamberlain’s record of 100, set in 1962, and both records still stand. Bryant led the team to two consecutive championships in 2009 and 2010, and was named NBA Finals MVP on both occasions. Due to a torn archille tendon at age 34, knee and shoulder injuries in two successive seasons, Bryant retired after the 2015–16 season. Bryant is the all-time leading scorer in Lakers franchise history. He was also the first guard in NBA history to play at least 20 seasons. His 18 All-Star designations are the second most all time, while it is the record for most consecutive appearances as a starter. Bryant's four All-Star MVP Awards are tied with Bob Pettit for the most in NBA history. He gave himself the nickname "Black Mamba" in the mid-2000s because the black mamba is aggressive and agile, and this is how Bryant wanted to play in his games. At the 2008 and 2012 Summer Olympics, he won two gold medals as a member of the U.S. national team.
