Kobe Bryant was one of those sportspersons whose influence wasn’t just limited within the basketball court, though his extraordinary numbers in the NBA are what made him such a legendary figure.
The Los Angeles Lakers hero was tragically killed in a helicopter crash at the age of 41 exactly a year ago. It was an event which led to an outpouring of tributes from basically almost every famous person on earth.
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“I don’t think any of us will ever forget that day,” Golden State Warriors coach Steve Kerr told NBC Sports last week, reflecting on when his team was starting a practice as the tragic news broke. “Everything stopped. The music stopped. The players stopped. Nobody said a word. A lot of guys dropped to the floor and started crying. Nothing happened for 10 minutes. We all just sat there in silence. It was one of the worst moments of all our lives.”
Bryant’s list of achievements over a 20-year career with the Lakers make him one of the basketball players to have ever played the game.
Take a look at his unbelievable feats here.
1. NBA Championship
Bryant won the NBA championship five times with the Lakers, in 2000, 2001, 2002, 2009, and 2010.
2. MVP
He was twice named MVP in the NBA Finals, in 2009 and 2010. Bryant was a fixture in the NBA All-Star team, named to that side in 1998 and then each year from 2000 to 2016, the year that he retired. Those 18 appearances put him second on the all-time list, with Kareem Abdul-Jabbar playing in 19 of the games.
Bryant was four times the NBA All-Star Game MVP, in 2002, 2007, 2009 and 2011.He received his lone NBA MVP award for the 2007-08 season, during which he became the youngest player to reach 20,000 career points, at the age of 29 years and 122 days.
3. Scores
He sits fourth on the NBA all-time list of points-scorers with 33,643 from 1,346 games. Only Abdul-Jabbar, Karl Malone, and LeBron James are ahead of him on the list.
In the 2005-06 season, Bryant recorded his highest points-per-game average for a single campaign, with 35.4. He led the NBA in scoring in that season and in 2006-07.
On January 22, 2006, Bryant scored 81 points in a 122-104 victory over the Toronto Raptors at Staples Center. That is the second-highest individual score in an NBA game, behind Wilt Chamberlain’s 100 for the Philadelphia Warriors against the New York Knicks in 1962.
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