Kobe Bryant was a professional basketball player and often considered as one among the greatest players of basketball in the history of the NBA. Kobe played under Los Angeles Lakers for his whole basketball career of 20 years; He played as the point guard, and undoubtedly he was an exception in that, he never missed amazing his audience with his extraordinary performances.
Kobe gave himself the title “Black Mamba”. He was the driving scorer in Lakers history, he was the principal monitor in NBA history to play 20 seasons. His 18 All-Star achievements are the second most unmatched, while it is the record as a starter most successive appearances.
Early Life
Kobe’s full name was Kobe Bean Bryant. He was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on August 23, 1978. Becoming a great player was Kobe’s destiny which he fulfilled by his hard work, strong ethics and great persistency. Kobe belongs to an athletic family background; his father Joe Bryant was the former NBA player.
Kobe was enthusiastic for basketball from his vary childhood and started playing when he was just three. Los Angeles lakers was Kobe’s favourite team since the beginning. Kobe started playing basketball with a firm decision to pursue his career as a full fledged sportsman when his family moved to Reiti in Italy after his father’s retirement from NBA.
Personal Life
In 1999, Kobe met with a 17 year old girl named Vanessa Laine in the studio where she was working as a background dancer and parallelly in the same studio he was working on his debut music album. After dating for 6 months they got engaged in 2001, and at that point of time Vanessa was still pursuing her high school graduation.
Then later on April 18, 2000 they got married; although this decision of Kobe’s created disputes with his family(Parents and two elder sisters Sharia and Shaya). Kobe’s family didn’t attended his wedding because they were against this decision of Kobe’s getting married in his 20’s only and girl was also not a native American-African.
Although after the birth of their first child, that moment of happiness resolved all disputes between Kobe and his family. Kobe has total of four children all daughters.
Career
In the initial phase of his career, Kobe was first drafted by Charlotte Hornets, but Kobe chose his dream team instead “The Los Angeles Lakers”. Kobe signed consecutive deals with lakers of whooping amounts. Kobe’s average scores are more of a record on itself with ‘25 points, 5.2 rebounds, 4.7 assists, and 1.4 steals per’ game respectively.
Kobe also led his club team to the finals and has achieved a series of consecutive wins along with various awards. Apart from NBA, Kobe had also accomplished his career in National games by being an individual from USA FIBA Americas Championship and USA Men’s Senior National Team that qualified after the astounding win for 2008 Olympics.
Net Worth
Kobe was one among the several wealthy sportsmen with a steady net worth of around $600 million. He has the total earning of $328 million alone from his dealings with the Lakers in his whole NBA carrier. Another mind-blowing fact is apart from his sportsmen salary; Kobe earned more through brand endorsements.
There was a time when Kobe had a deal signed with several high-value brands like Nike, Adidas, McDonald’s, Turkish airlines Lenovo and etc. Furthermore, Kobe also invested in purchasing 10% of equity stakes of BodyArmour (it’s a sports drink brand) for $6 million and fortunately when Cocacola purchased large share of BodyArmour; it increased the company value to $2 billion which ultimately made Kobe’s investment of $6 million to $200 million
Death
On January 26, 2020 Kobe died in a horrific helicopter crash incident along with 8 other people among which one was his 13-year-old daughter Gianna. According to reports, the helicopter was making a trip to Camarillo Airport in Ventura County for a basketball game at Mamba Sports Academy in Thousand Oaks, the helicopter collided with the side of a mountain in Calabasas, around 30 miles northwest of downtown Los Angeles. The result was total destruction and death of all 9 people including the pilot.
Conclusion
Kobe Bryant “The Black Mamba” one of the elite player in the history of basketball with a collection of a number of records whether it’s for being a young star of basketball for phenomenal performance or the part of the national team with one of the greatest out scorer match of Olympics and another one of his colossal success was winning an Oscar for his film “Dear Basketball”.
In simple words, Kobe was an exceptional personality with amazing talent not only in basketball but in the field of filmography and music direction too. Although, being a human Kobe also faced some downfalls and dark phases of life.
