Kobe Bryant
The autopsy report of Kobe Bryant — one of the greatest basketball players of all time, 1978–2020.
Early Life
Kobe Bean Bryant was born August 23, 1978, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. His father, Joe “Jellybean” Bryant, was an NBA player, and when Kobe was six the family moved to Italy, where Joe continued his career in the Italian league. Kobe grew up speaking fluent Italian, playing soccer and basketball, and idolizing the Lakers on videotapes of NBA games.
The family returned to the United States when Kobe was a teenager, settling in the Philadelphia suburbs. At Lower Merion High School in Ardmore, he became a national sensation — a 6-foot-6 guard with NBA-level footwork and an obsessive work ethic. He led the Aces to a Pennsylvania state championship as a senior and was named the Naismith Prep Player of the Year, a McDonald's All-American, and the Gatorade National Player of the Year.
Twenty Years a Laker
Bryant declared for the 1996 NBA Draft straight out of high school. The Charlotte Hornets selected him 13th overall, then traded his draft rights to the Los Angeles Lakers for center Vlade Divac. The trade would become one of the most lopsided in sports history. Bryant, still 17 years old when drafted, spent his entire 20-season NBA career (1996–2016) with the Lakers — the only franchise he ever played for.
Alongside Shaquille O'Neal, Bryant helped deliver three consecutive NBA championships from 2000 to 2002. After O'Neal's departure, Bryant became the league's dominant scoring force, winning back-to-back scoring titles in 2006 and 2007. On January 22, 2006, he scored 81 points against the Toronto Raptors — the second-highest single-game total in NBA history, behind only Wilt Chamberlain's 100.
Bryant was named the league's Most Valuable Player for the 2007–08 season and led the Lakers to two more championships in 2009 and 2010, earning Finals MVP honors both times. Nicknamed the “Black Mamba” for his cold-blooded competitiveness, he finished with 33,643 career points, 18 All-Star selections, 15 All-NBA selections, and 12 All-Defensive Team selections. He also won two Olympic gold medals with Team USA, in Beijing (2008) and London (2012).
On April 13, 2016, in his final NBA game, the 37-year-old Bryant scored 60 points against the Utah Jazz — a storybook send-off to a career that helped define modern basketball. In 2017 the Lakers retired both of his numbers, 8 and 24, the only player in franchise history so honored.
Beyond Basketball
Bryant's second act was already underway before he left the court. He built Granity Studios, a multimedia company, and in 2018 won the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film for Dear Basketball, the animated adaptation of the poem he wrote to announce his retirement. He became a youth basketball coach — notably coaching his daughter Gianna's teams — and authored a best-selling book, The Mamba Mentality: How I Play, distilling the obsessive preparation ethic that made him a legend.
He married Vanessa Laine in 2001, and they raised four daughters together: Natalia, Gianna, Bianka, and Capri. After retirement, Bryant devoted himself to family and business ventures, including investments in sports drinks, gaming, and youth sports training.
The Death
On the morning of January 26, 2020, Bryant boarded a Sikorsky S-76B helicopter with his 13-year-old daughter Gianna and seven others — Gianna's teammates Payton Chester and Alyssa Altobelli, their mothers Sarah Chester and Keri Altobelli, Payton's teammate Alyssa's father and coach John Altobelli, assistant coach Christina Mauser, and pilot Ara Zobayan — for a short flight from Orange County to Bryant's Mamba Sports Academy in Thousand Oaks, California, for a youth basketball tournament.
Thick morning fog blanketed the hills northwest of Los Angeles. The helicopter lost contact with air traffic control and crashed into a hillside in Calabasas, California, at approximately 9:45 a.m. All nine people aboard were killed. Bryant was 41 years old. Gianna was 13.
The National Transportation Safety Board's investigation concluded that the probable cause was the pilot's decision to continue flying under visual flight rules into instrument meteorological conditions — the dense fog — resulting in spatial disorientation and loss of control. The crash sent shockwaves through the sports world and beyond. Tributes poured in from around the globe: NBA teams took intentional 24-second and 8-second violations to honor his numbers, fans gathered outside the Staples Center for days, and his memorial service at the arena on February 24, 2020, drew basketball royalty from every era.