Family members, friends and fans are mourning the death of the great basketball player Kobe Bryant who was killed in a helicopter crash on January 27th, 2020 in Calabasas, California. "I can't believe it," one Kobe fan said. Calabasas is about 30 miles west of Los Angeles where Bryant spent his professional career helping the L. A. Lakers (湖人队) win five championships.
Kobe Bryant was born on August 23, 1978, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the USA. He first started turning heads on the basketball court when he was in middle school. His talents dominated (掌控) the game so much that high schools from all over the Philadelphia area watched him grow up. The almost six-foot tall seventh grader definitely had the genes for the game, as his dad was former NBA forward, Joe Bryant. Kobe developed his basketball skills under the watchful eyes of his father. He worked daily on his games, watching videos, playing in the playgrounds and listening to his father.
He went on to finish his high school career as the all-time leading point scorer in Pennsylvania history with a total of 2, 883 points. And this made him the 13th overall choice by the Charlotte Hornets (黄蜂队) in the 1996 NBA draft (选秀). But he was traded to the L. A. Lakers at once, where his NBA career started and ended. Between 1996 and 2016, Kobe scored 33, 643 points in his career. That puts him fourth in NBA history according to ESPN. Kobe Bryant is one of the NBA's best scorers. Breakthrough, shooting, free throws, three-pointers all of these he can do well, almost no offensive blind area; single-game 81 points of personal record will forcefully prove this point. On April 14, 2016, Kobe Bryant has officially announced the ending of his professional career in NBA.
During his career, Kobe was always the symbol of being hard-working. He once said he knew what Los Angeles was like at 4：00 a. m. because his training started at that time every day. "I can accept failure but I can't accept not trying." Basketball fan, all over the world named this spirit as Black Mamba Spirit.
