1,346īoth of the Lakers’ rookies selected in the first round of the 1996 N.B.A. Shawn Kemp sat out a year after graduating high school in 1988 before he was drafted in 1989 by Seattle. Those four predecessors: Moses Malone, Darryl Dawkins, Bill Willoughby and Kevin Garnett. Only four players - all big men - made the jump directly from high school to the pros before Bryant and Portland’s Jermaine O’Neal were selected in the 1996 N.B.A. A future teammate with the Lakers, Andrew Bynum, eventually became the youngest player in league history at 18 years and six days old when he made his debut in 2005. history when he made his regular-season debut for the Lakers on Nov. 18īryant was the youngest player in N.B.A. In tribute to Kobe Bryant and his second of two jersey numbers, we present a 24-item assemblage of standout statistics from his career with the Lakers. “He knew me when there was no Shammgod moves.” “I knew him when he wasn’t this Kobe,” Shammgod said. playing careers, Shammgod has landed on the Mavericks’ staff as a player development coach - yet he remains so revered for his ball handling that, even in a coaching role, he has his own Puma signature shoe.ĭays after that Lakers/Mavericks game, never realizing the sorrow that was looming, Shammgod told me some moving stories of his workouts with father and daughter - how he had the extraordinary opportunity to coach them both. Wearing a bright orange hoodie and a green ski cap to rep his hometown Philadelphia Eagles, Bryant was sitting courtside beside Gianna as they watched - make that studied - the Lakers’ LeBron James and Luka Doncic of the Dallas Mavericks going head-to-head.Īlso in the building that night was God Shammgod, whose extraordinary dribbling ability made him a New York playground legend. 29 at Staples Center, he had never looked more joyful. “She’s like, ‘Oy, I got this,’” Bryant said of Gianna, then 12. Perhaps by now you have seen the clip of Kobe from his visit to the “Jimmy Kimmel Live” show in 2018, telling the world that Gianna bristled any time she heard a fan suggest to her father that he and his wife, Vanessa Bryant, needed to have a boy to uphold Kobe’s legacy.
GIGI ALLEN PRO
On Monday, I wrote about how he was convinced, from the first minute of his pro career, that he was bound for the Hall of Fame.
Kobe Bryant was 17 when I met him, then freshly acquired by the Los Angeles Lakers. The list gets sadder every time it is recited. The lives of three teenage girls with so much to look forward were taken in the crash, along with those of Bryant Alyssa’s parents, John and Keri Payton’s mother, Sarah Kobe’s assistant coach, Christina Mauser and Ara Zobayan, who piloted the helicopter. “Mambacita is forever a Husky,” the school posted on Twitter, referring to the nickname that Kobe Bryant, the self-styled “Black Mamba,” had given the second-born of his four daughters.Īlso on board were two of Gianna’s teammates from the AAU squad coached by her father: Alyssa Altobelli and Payton Chester.
2 on the bench for an exhibition game against the United States national team. Beloved by members of the University of Connecticut women’s basketball program, which she dreamed of joining someday, Gianna received a moving tribute from the team on Monday when it placed flowers and a UConn jersey bearing her No.
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