Delivered right because the newspaper goes to print on Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday. Get up-to-the-minute news despatched straight to your device. We'd love to hear eyewitness accounts, the historical past behind an article. The Worm left the team in free company as he signed with the Dallas Mavericks.

After the Lakers' season ended, Bryant said on TNT that he wished 24 as a rookie, but it was unavailable, as was 33, retired with Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. Bryant wore 143 on the Adidas ABCD camp, and chose 8 by including these numbers. In the first spherical of the playoffs, the Lakers played nicely enough to achieve a 3–1 collection lead over the Phoenix Suns, culminating with Bryant's OT-forcing and game-winning shots in Game four. Despite Bryant's 27.9 points per sport within the series, the Lakers broke down, and finally fell to the Suns in seven games.

Bryant taking a shot in 1999Bryant's fortunes improved when Phil Jackson took over as coach of the Lakers in 1999. The Lakers turned championship contenders behind the center-guard combination of Bryant and O'Neal. Jackson utilized the triangle offense that he implemented to win six championships with the Chicago Bulls; this offense would assist each Bryant and O'Neal rise to the elite class of the NBA. Three championships have been won consecutively in 2000, 2001, and 2002, additional cementing this view. The Lakers have been trying to trade their beginning middle Vlade Divac for a player's draft rights to free up salary cap space to make an offer to free-agent heart Shaquille O'Neal.

On January 26, 2020, Bryant was onboard a Sikorsky S-76 helicopter that crashed in the Los Angeles suburb of Calabasas. Nine folks, including Bryant and his 13-year-old daughter Gianna "Gigi," died. The helicopter was on its method from Orange County to Thousands Oaks, California where Bryant was scheduled to coach a match sport at Mamba Sports Academy. An all-star lineup of Laker icons also paid tribute to Bryant, including O’Neal, Phil Jackson, Pau Gasol, Derek Fisher, Lamar Odom and Magic Johnson. "We are here to have fun greatness for 20 years," Johnson mentioned. "Excellence for 20 years. Kobe Bryant has never cheated the game, by no means cheated us as the fans. He has performed via injury, he has performed harm. And we have 5 championship banners to show for it."

It's the arena — then called Staples Center — where Bryant performed half his games in his 20 seasons with the Lakers, scored his career-best 81 factors in opposition to Toronto in 2006 and referred to as residence for 5 championship runs and 18 All-Star campaigns. So Vanessa Kaneshiro Garber, our video producer at the time, and I took off for Oklahoma City, the place we’d meet Bryant on a Lakers off day in February. OKC was a super spot, as the Thunder had been of their first year in Oklahoma after relocating from Seattle. Kevin Durant was a second-year participant, Russell Westbrook was a rookie, and the group wasn’t very good—the Thunder completed that season.

On November 2, 2012, Bryant scored forty factors with two steals, and he handed Magic Johnson as the Lakers career leader in steals. However, the Lakers lost the sport to the Clippers and started the season 0–3 for the first time in 34 years and just the fourth time in franchise history. After starting the season 1–4, coach Mike Brown was fired. He was replaced by Mike D'Antoni, who Bryant knew as a child when Bryant's father was enjoying in Italy and D'Antoni was also a star participant there. On December 18, in a 101–100 win over the Charlotte Bobcats, Bryant scored 30+ factors in his seventh consecutive sport, the longest streak ever by an NBA player after turning 34 years old; it was the fourth-longest such streak in his career.

It was Bryant’s first game since sexual assault costs have been filed in opposition to him in Colorado. Kobe Bryant, together with his spouse, Vanessa, at his facet, holds a information convention at Staples Center in 2003 to discuss accusations by a 19-year-old Colorado woman that he sexually assaulted her. He conceded he was guilty of adultery, but he declared he was innocent of charges of felonious sexual assault.

What occurred in return was a shift in the Drew League’s popularity, saving the league. Dino Smiley advised Yahoo Sports in 2016 that he had planned on the 2011 season being the final. The responsibilities as commissioner had begun to take a toll on him. She mentioned that when security tried to get Bryant out of the sport early, he told them no. Bryant needed to play till the top and end the game.