- [Reporter] Kobe Bryant,
one of the greatest players
in NBA history died in a
helicopter crash on Sunday
at the age of 41.
His 13-year-old daughter
and several others onboard also died.
Bryant, known by his
nickname, Black Mamba,
is being mourned as being one
of the best basketball players
of his generation.
- [Jason] Kobe Bryant straddles a couple
of different eras of basketball.
He goes from the sort
of smash-up, mash-up era
of the '90s where you had
tough teams like the Miami Heat
and the Knicks to the kind
of perimeter-focused three-point shooting
that you see nowadays.
- [Reporter] In two
decades with the Lakers,
the 18-time all-star
won five championships
and scored 33,643 points.
The fourth most in NBA history.
- [Jason] He could do it all.
I mean, that was one of his great gifts
as a basketball player.
He wasn't wedded to any one style.
He could beat you inside, outside.
He could beat you seemingly
single handedly in his prime.
- [Reporter] In 1996, after
graduating from high school
outside Philadelphia, he
elected to skip college
and go straight to the NBA
where he was drafted 13th
overall by the Charlotte Hornets
and immediately traded
to the Los Angeles Lakers
where he quickly became a star.
- The crowd got me real
pumped up after the dunk.
- [Reporter] As a rookie, we
won the slam dunk contests
and in his second year was
chosen to be an all-star.
His meteoric rise continued
through the late '90s
and into the early 2000s.
Bryant, alongside
teammate Shaquille O'Neal
and coach Phil Jackson by 2002
had won three consecutive
NBA championships.
- [Reporter] A three peak NS sweep.
- [Reporter] The next year,
Bryant's legacy was tarnished.
He was charged with sexually assaulting
a 19-year-old hotel employee.
Bryant, his wife Vanessa beside him said
the sexual encounter was consensual.
Prosecutors eventually
dropped all criminal charges
when the women said she
didn't want to testify.
Bryant later settled a civil
suit connected to the case.
Back on the court, he
continued breaking records.
In 2006, he scored 81
points in a single game,
the second highest in NBA history.
- I couldn't even dream
of this when I was a kid.
There's just no way possible.
- [Reporter] In 2008, he
was named the league's MVP
but he couldn't take his team all the way
to victory that year.
- That was a turning point.
It was when I sat there in
the hotel room afterwards,
I started thinking about that
'cause it's on me.
If I didn't feel like my
teammates were aggressive enough,
that falls on me.
And I had to understand
what their journey was,
how are they feeling as people,
what are they going through?
- [Reporter] The next year,
the Lakers were back on top.
He won his fourth championship
and in 2010, his fifth and final.
- Championships are a byproduct of things,
drills and exercises that I
did when I was six years old.
(chuckling)
- [Reporter] In 2016 after 20
years in the NBA, he retired.
- [Jason] The thing
that I will never forget
is his last game in the NBA.
He got 60 points off 50 shots
which is a spectacular amount of shots
to take in a basketball game.
- [Reporter] What an exit for number 24!
- [Jason] It's kind of in
this very small moment,
in his last moment of the court,
the NBA kind of in miniature,
all the greatnesses and brilliances
and excesses of what it
meant to be Kobe Bryant.
- [Reporter] After leaving the court,
Bryant turned his attention
to new business endeavors.
He launched a venture capital firm,
published a series of
young adult fantasy novels
and even won an academy award
for an animated short film
called "Dear Basketball,"
an ode to his love for the game.
- [Kobe] My heart can take the pounding.
My mind can handle the grind.
But my body knows it's
time to say goodbye.
- [Reporter] When the LA Lakers
retired his jersey numbers
in 2017, Bryant reminded his daughters
of the secrets of his success.
- You guys know that if you do the work,
you work hard enough, dreams come true.
You know that, we all know that
but hopefully want you get from tonight
is the understanding that those times
when you get up early and you work hard,
those times where you stay up late
and you work hard, those times
when you don't feel like working,
you're too tired, you
don't wanna push yourself
but you do it anyway,
that is actually the dream.
That's the dream,
it's not the destination,
it's the journey.
- [Reporter] Kobe was recently spotted out
at NBA games with his
13-year-old daughter Gianna
who died alongside him in the crash.
She was a rising star
basketball player herself.
- It was 20 great years.
It was very fortunate to play that long.
And but now I watch it
through my daughter.
My daughter plays every day.
- [Reporter] He called her mambacita,
a nod to the nickname
he had given himself.
- Mamba out.
(crowd cheering)
(melancholic music)
