Kobe Bean Bryant was an American professional basketball player who is widely regarded as one of the greatest basketball players of all time. He set multiple NBA records, including most seasons played for a single NBA team (Los Angeles Lakers), before ending his basketball career in 2016. On January 26th, 2020, Bryant died in a helicopter crash in California together with his 13-year-old daughter Gianna Bryant and seven other people.

History

In 1996, at the age of 17, Kobe Bryant was drafted by Los Angeles Lakers, becoming the first guard player to be drafted directly out of high school.^[1] Bryant made his debut in the NBA in the Summer Pro League in Long Beach, California, scoring 25 points in his first match.

Between 2000 and 2002, Kobe Bryant and Shaquille O'Neal lead the Los Angeles Lakers to three consecutive NBA championships.

In 2006, Bryant set a career-high of 81 points against the Toronto Raptors, the second-highest single-game personal score in the NBA history. In 2009 and 2010, Bryant earned two more NBA championships with the Lakers.

Through his 20-year-long NBA career at Los Angeles Lakers, Bryant set a number of league records. He ranks third on the NBA's all-time post-season scoring and all-time regular season scoring lists. Bryant was selected to play in the NBA All-Star Game 18 times, winning All-Star MBP Awards four times.

Kobe Bryant wore 8 as his uniform number for the first part of his career, later changing it to 24. He nicknamed himself, and was later referred to by others, as "The Black Mamba."

In addition to his NBA achievements, Bryant is the gold medalist of 2008 and 2012 summer Olympics and the 2018 Academy Award winner for the Best Animated Short Film with Dear Basketball, which was written and narrated by him.

Personal Life

Kobe Bryant was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in the family of professional NBA player Joe Bryant, and started playing basketball at the age of three. When he was six, his family moved to Italy where they spent several years before returning to the United States.

On April 18th, 2001, Bryant married dancer Vanessa Laine, with their first daughter being born in January 2003. The couples, second daughter, Gianna, was born in May 2006, with their third and fourth children born in December 2016 and June 2019.

Kobe Bryant was a practicing Catholic, spoke Italian at a proficient level and conducted press interviews in Spanish.

Criticisms

Sexual Assault Allegations

In 2003, Kobe Bryant was accused of sexual assault by a 19-year-old hotel employee who claimed that Bryant raped her in his hotel room in Eagle, Colorado, the night before he had to undergo knee surgery. Bryant admitted to having sexual relations with the accuser but denied sexual assault allegations.

In September 2004, the assault case was dropped by the prosecutors after the accuser refused to testify at the trial. Bryant subsequently apologized for the incident, saying: "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."^[2] The accuser later filed a civil lawsuit against Bryant, which was settled privately.

Death

At 9:06 am PST on January 26th, 2020, Bryant, his 13-year-old daughter Gianna, six other passengers and a pilot departed from John Wayne Airport in Orange County, California, in a Sikorsky S-76B helicopter, heading for a basketball game at Mamba Sports Academy in Newbury Park. The weather condition at that time was reported to be foggy, with LAPD grounding its police helicopters due to the poor weather.

After the departure, the helicopter passed over Boyle Heights and circled over Glendale during the flight. At 9:47 am PST the helicopter crashed in Calabasas, California, catching fire upon the impact. The fire was extinguished by the Los Angeles County Fire Department by 10:30 am.

All nine occupants of the helicopter were killed in the crash. Two hours after the incident, TMZ^[3] reported that the athlete and his daughter both died in the crash.

Online Reactions

Following Kobe Bryant's death, multiple users on social media made posts reacting to the news, including posts by Bryant's former teammates, friends, politicians, social media figures, influencers and other prominent public figures (example posts shown below). A tweet by Kobe Bryant's former teammate Shaquille O'Neal received over 389,600 retweets and 1.7 million likes in one day (shown below, left).^[5]

On social media including Instagram,^[6] iFunny^[7] and other online platforms, a number of edgy memes about Kobe Bryant's death had also been posted. A number of such jokes us "KOBE!" as a caption.^[8]

BBC News Gaffe

Following Bryant's death, on January 26th, 2020, BBC News aired an in-memoriam segment on the player, but used archive footage of Los Angeles Lakers player LeBron James instead. On the same day, Twitter^[4] user @matthewchampion tweeted about the gaffe, with the tweet receiving over 12,300 retweets and 51,900 likes and with the clip accumulating over 3.5 million views in one day (shown below).

Related Memes

KOBE!

KOBE! is a catchphrase usually shouted when a person is attempting to perform a trick shot, such as landing a ball of paper into a garbage bin.

Kobe Bryant "White Hot" Cover Photo

Kobe Bryant's 'White Hot' refers to a photoshop meme based on a magazine cover photo of Kobe Bryant posing in an all-white designer suit. Published in May 2010 by the LA Times Magazine, Bryant's cover photo led to an outpouring of criticism from online sports communities and a slew of photoshopped images featuring Bryant's "white hot" look.

Petty Kobe Bryant

Petty Kobe is a reaction image of Kobe Bryant sitting in a chair with a smug smile, and the Larry O'Brien trophy, which is given to the NBA Finals winning team. The photo gained popularity on Black Twitter, along with other reaction images, similar to Petty Skai Jackson, and 'New York' in a bed.

Search Interest

External References