Difficult to keep only one image of him. Only one decisive action or to list its many records. Unable to summarize Kobe Bryant. Died Sunday morning at the age of 41 in a helicopter accident on the heights of Los Angeles, the kid from Philadelphia was one of the biggest stars in the NBA, the North American basketball championship. He was above all a legend in world sport. Quite simply. A model and an inspiration for a whole generation of young people. All over the world, kids wear their sneakers or their famous Los Angeles Lakers tunic, their only club, on their backs with the numbers 8 and 24.
Today these teenagers who have grown up mourn their idols. Their youth. "If I have long worn number 8 on my jersey it is to do like him, confides, this Sunday evening, in shock Mamoutou Diarra, the former tricolor international. When we started at Insep with Tony (Parker) and Boris (Diaw) we all had our idols. Tony was Jordan, I was Kobe. He was my model. I do not know if he is at the level of a Michael Jordan or a Mohamed Ali in the history of world sport but he is not far from it. "
"We did not stay long enough in France"
Born in Philadelphia on August 23, 1978, little Kobe crossed the Atlantic to follow his basketball father. For seven years the whole family - dad Joe, his mother and two sisters, Shaya and Sharia - lived in Italy, where the teenager fell in love with football and AC Milan. After this seven-year term, the father was recruited in 1991 by ... Mulhouse. The young man thus lives a few months in France and will keep a special affection for France.
VIDEO. Kobe Bryant: "I had a great time in Mulhouse"
“I remember a very nice kid, very respectful. He had a good face, was funny, very cute. A real joker, "said Jimmy Vérove, European champion with Limoges in 1993 and player in Mulhouse in 1991, at the time of Bryant's sporting retirement in 2016." I stayed in France for six months, confided the interested party a few years later. It was a great experience. My father tried to learn French. Me too, but we didn't stay long enough. "
After this parenthesis, Kobe returns to the United States. The young man is in a hurry. He was only 17 years old when he was drafted by the Charlottes Hornets who sold him in stride to the Lakers. The legendary Los Angeles franchise. That of Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, of Magic Johnson. King of the show, he continues the work of his glorious predecessors alongside the pivot Shaquille O'Neal with whom he will form one of the most effective and impressive duets in history. In the city of Angels, Bryant will become a God. And will earn the nickname Black Mamba for his killer instinct.
81 points in an NBA game…
"I've never seen a player with so much self-confidence," said David Kahn, president of Paris Basketball who has faced him many times as a former leader of the Minnesota Timberwolves and Indiana Pacers . He was unstoppable on a pitch. In principle a player when he misses his first shots, he stops. Him, he continued and he ended up winning. It's difficult to rank but he is obviously one of the ten best players in history… at least… ”
Due to its game, so elegant and efficient, its records and its track record. Impressive. With the Lakers he won five NBA champion rings (in 2000, 2001, 2002, 2009 and 2010 and was crowned best player in the finals in the last two). On January 22, 2006, he scored 81 points against the Toronto Raptors, establishing the second best mark in NBA history behind Wilt Chamberlain's 100 points. He wears his seductive smile on the roof of Olympus with two coronations at the 2008 and 2012 Olympic Games.
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But the man, married to Vanessa for almost twenty years, also had a darker face. His image was notably tarnished by a rape accusation in 2003. The father of four daughters - Natalia, 17 years old for 9 days, Gianna, 13 years old, and Bianka Bella, 3 years old and Capri - had retired in 2016. Since he regularly came to watch Lakers games with his daughters. He had recently dubbed star LeBron James who has been playing at the Lakers since last season and had just passed him on the record of the best scorers in history. Since Sunday Los Angeles has lost more than one angel.