Kobe Bryant
American basketball player

 Kobe Bryant, full name Kobe Bean Bryant, was an American professional basketball player who played for the Los Angeles Lakers of the National Basketball Association (NBA) from 2000 to 2010. He was born on August 23, 1978 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and died on January 26, 2020 in Calabasas, California.

Joe ("Jelly Bean") Bryant, Bryant's father, was a professional basketball player who spent eight seasons in the NBA and another eight in Italy, where Bryant attended school.

Bryant played basketball at Lower Merion High School in Ardmore, Pennsylvania, when his family relocated to the United States, where he won numerous national Player of the Year titles and broke Wilt Chamberlain's southeastern Pennsylvania scoring record with 2,883 points. Bryant decided against attending college and made himself eligible for the NBA draught after graduating from high school.

He was selected with the 13th overall pick in the 1996 NBA Draft by the Charlotte Hornets. Shortly after, he was transferred to the Lakers, and when the 1996–97 season began, he became the second-youngest NBA player in history. He immediately established himself with the Lakers, and in just his second season, he was named to the NBA All-Star Game, becoming the league's youngest All-Star.

Bryant was forced to split the position of Lakers' top player with Shaquille O'Neal, a popular and skilled colleague. The two had an acrimonious relationship, but they found success under Phil Jackson's leadership as the Lakers' coach in 1999. Bryant, a shooting guard, and O'Neal, a centre, formed an incredibly efficient duo, and the Lakers had won three straight NBA titles by the time Bryant was 23.

Bryant and the Lakers ran into problems after winning their third championship in 2002. The Lakers were eliminated in the second round of the 2003 playoffs. Bryant was accused of raping a young lady in Colorado a few months later. After a months-long campaign of intimidation by Bryant supporters and some members of the media, the lady declined to testify, and the accusations against him were finally dismissed. (Bryant eventually apologised, saying that he was unaware that his accuser did not feel their sexual encounter was consensual, and a civil complaint against him was resolved in 2005.) His reputation was severely damaged as a result of the event. The Lakers returned to the finals in 2004, led by Bryant, but were defeated by the Detroit Pistons. Following O'Neal's departure, Bryant became the team's lone leader. 

During the 2005–06 and 2006–07 seasons, Bryant led the league in scoring, and for the first time in his career, he was voted the league's MVP in 2008. In 2009, Bryant won his fourth NBA championship and was voted Finals MVP after averaging 32.4 points per game in the series. In 2009–10, he led the Lakers to their third straight Western Conference title, and he was voted NBA Finals MVP for the second time after the Lakers defeated the Boston Celtics in a seven-game series. Each of the following seasons saw the Lakers win their division, although they were ousted in the second round of the playoffs each time. Each of the following seasons saw the Lakers win their division, although they were ousted in the second round of the playoffs each time. 

The Lakers were considered one of the preseason title favourites entering the 2012–13 season, having added superstars Steve Nash and Dwight Howard to their lineup. However, the disappointing team was barely on track to qualify for the final Western Conference playoff spot when Bryant ruptured his Achilles tendon in April 2013, forcing him to miss the rest of the season. (The Lakers finished the season as the eighth and final playoff seed, and their first series was swept.) In December 2013, he returned to the court, but only for six games before breaking his kneecap and missing the rest of the season. Bryant returned to the team at the start of the 2014–15 season before injuring his rotator cuff in January 2015. He played virtually the whole next season, but struggled again, averaging 17.6 points per game and a career-low.358 shooting %. He retired after the last regular-season game of the 2015–16 season.

He was a member of the gold-medal-winning U.S. men's basketball teams in the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games and the 2012 London Olympic Games, in addition to his professional achievements. Bryant penned the poem "Dear Basketball" in 2015, and it was adapted into a short film of the same name two years later, which he also narrated. The film received an Academy Award nomination for best animated short film. Bryant released The Mamba Mentality: How I Pun in 2018, in which he discussed his approach to basketball. The title is a play on his moniker "The Black Mamba," which he earned during his playing days. Bryant and his 13-year-old daughter were among nine persons killed when a chopper carrying them to a girls basketball tournament crashed on January 26, 2020. Later that year, he was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame.