On his professional debut, Kobe Bryant is the youngest player in NBA history. The basketball legend scored 60 points in his last mission. His death a year ago today not only brings deep sadness to the sports world. An obituary in facts and figures.
When Kobe Bryant announced the end of his career in November 2015, he did so with a poem. In "Lieber Basketball" the exceptional professional wrote down his love for the game, to which he had subordinated everything for decades. His work ethic is legendary, countless stories told by companions, how he often appeared first for training and the last to leave the hall. How he looked for a basket to work on himself after bad games late at night.
On January 26, 2020, Kobe Bryant passed away at the age of 41, one of nine victims of a helicopter crash in Los Angeles. On board was his 13-year-old daughter Gianna, who wanted to follow in his footsteps and, like her father, pursued a basketball career. They were on their way to the sports academy he founded. Bryant leaves behind his wife Vanessa and three daughters.
A baseball coach with his wife and daughter, a woman with her daughter, a basketball coach and the pilot also had an accident with them. It wasn't just the sports world that was in shock. Bryant's influence went way beyond the NBA and basketball, he was a global icon. Despite his argumentative character, despite never fully resolved rape allegations from 2003.
Because Bryant lived for his sport, because he was obsessed with basketball. Because in his 20 seasons with the Los Angeles Lakers he shone in an NBA that keeps records more precisely than almost any other league. Every game, every minute of the game, every throw – everything is recorded statistically. This gives a picture of the impression the professional made in his 1346 regular season games and 220 playoff games. That he would be inducted into the basketball hall of fame in the summer was certain long before the end of his career.
Bryant's last tweet is congratulations to LeBron James. The former Lakers superstar congratulates the current Lakers superstar on overtaking him in the list of the hardest-working points collectors in NBA history. In Philadelphia, Bryant's birth town, James passed by – in the all-time ranking the "Black Mamba", as he called himself, is now in fourth place with 33,643 points, from 1996 to 2016 Bryant averaged 24.99 points per game. In December 2014 he overtook Michael Jordan, who is known to many as "G.O.A.T" (Greatest Of All Time).
Not only in the regular season, Bryant was always able to score points on the assembly line. In the postseason, the playoffs, when it came to titles, Bryant increased his nightly yield again – to an average of 25.6 points. He reached the playoffs 15 times with the Lakers, seven times the NBA finals, five times he reached the coveted Larry O'Brien trophy as "Purple & Gold", as the team from the Californian metropolis that plays in golden yellow and purple is also called Masters on high.
If you want to hit a lot, you have to throw a lot. And so it is hardly surprising that Kobe – the big stars are often called by their first name – also missed many litters. Bryant sent the orange ball on its way to the basket exactly 26,200 times, but 14,481 times it did not land in the net, but on the ring, on the board, missed its target completely or was blocked as an airball. And just for the sake of completeness: Bryant is sixth in the NBA rankings for the most successful litters. In front of him there is only one player, Michael Jordan, who also played as a guard. In front of the two are four players who are all taller and heavier and therefore usually played closer to the basket.
January 22, 2006, Staples Center, Los Angeles. The Lakers receive the Toronto Raptors, but above all, Kobe Bryant asks his opponents to dance. One raptor after another tries to stop number 8. After Bryant had scored 62 points in just three quarters in Dallas a few days earlier – and thus alone more than the entire Mavericks team – he is now pulling through. He hits 28/46 throws from the field, including seven threes. He kicks the free-throw line 20 times and sinks 18 attempts. At the end of the day, Bryant had 81 points – the second highest return any single player has ever achieved in the NBA. Only the legendary Wilt Chamberlain was more successful in his 100-point game. However: Bryant scored almost two-thirds of his team's points, even Chamberlain hadn't succeeded.
The 81-point game was part of a season in which Bryant had more freedom than seldom before and after. He looked for his own degree more than 27 times per game – in no other season did Kobe have more than 23.2 throws per game. His season average of 35.4 points per evening was only surpassed in the modern NBA by Michael Jordan (37.1 in the 1986/1987 season). In this 2005/06 season alone, Bryant scored six times more than 50 points, a total of 25 times in his career. The last was also his last NBA game when he said goodbye to active basketball against the Utah Jazz with 60 points and the legendary saying "Mamba Out".
The NBA is looking closely at the money. All salaries are public because the salary cap defines exactly how much each team can invest in their squad per season. The income comes on the one hand from a pot of the league, which the 30 franchises split among themselves. However, each team also markets itself – and thanks to their proximity to Hollywood, the Lakers belong to the world of the beautiful and the rich and have always been one of the clubs that don't have to worry about how they pay their bills. Which means that Kobe Bryant appears at the top of the list of top-earning professionals. This is also due to the fact that the upper salary limit has risen significantly in his 20 NBA years. While in 1996/97 there were 24.363 million US dollars available for the full roster, in 2015/16 it was already 70 million dollars. Last season, thanks to a generous new TV contract, the salary cap cracked the $ 100 million mark for the first time.
From high school straight to the best league in the world: When Kobe Bryant was first drafted by the Charlotte Hornets in June 1996 and then traded to the Los Angeles Lakers, he was 17 years old. In August he celebrated his 18th birthday, in November he was the youngest debutant in NBA history at the age of 18 years and 72 days. Almost four weeks later he was already rid of that record, but almost a quarter of a century later, Bryant is still the third youngest professional to ever play. However, this is also due to the fact that since 2006 only those who will be 19 years old in the year of the talent draw have been eligible for the draft. However, Bryant still holds an age record: He is still the youngest player to be called into the starting five: on January 28, 1997 at the age of 18 years and 158 days.
As I said at the beginning, the NBA is recording every minute. Even in the truest sense of the word. However, numbers like the 48,637 minutes that Kobe Bryant played in his 1346 regular season games are far too big to imagine. That corresponds to 810 hours. Still sounds like a number that isn't really tangible? It's 33.8 days – more than a full month that Bryant would play if you just linked his regular season NBA appearances. In addition, there are another 8,641 playoff minutes, that is another 6 days. And that's just the games. The minutes, hours, and days that Kobe spent on the training fields probably exceed this value many times over.
"How many children can say that they played for their favorite team and were allowed to spend their entire career there," said Bryant enthusiastically in 2016 after his last game for the Lakers and said: "You can't write this story better." In the eternal NBA ranking of the "One-Team-Wonder", Bryant is actually only surpassed by one other basketball icon: Dirk Nowitzki, who even played 21 seasons for the Dallas Mavericks – one more than Bryant for his Lakers.
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Bryant is a legend of basketball. His name is known even to those who have never had anything to do with this game. For many current NBA pros, he's one of the reasons they started working for their careers. They honored him in a very special way on the day of his death. In his career, Bryant first wore the number 8, then later the number 24. It just so happens that there are two elementary rules for NBA attacks: within eight seconds the ball must dribble or pass from one's own half into the opponent and after a maximum of 24 seconds it must be concluded. Numerous teams deliberately violated both rules at the start of the game, letting the time pass by. To pay their respects to the deceased legend.
This text first appeared on January 27, 2020
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