Kobe Bryant Biography:
Kobe Bryant is famous for being one of the best basketball players in the history of the NBA. He played guard for the Los Angeles Lakers for 20 years. He was known for his tough defense, vertical leap, and ability to score winning baskets at the end of the game. He is widely considered the best basketball player of the 2000s and perhaps one of the best of all time. Kobe was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on August 23, 1978. He has two older sisters, Sharia and Shaya. His dad, Jellybean Joe Bryant, was a pro basketball player, too. Kobe attended Lower Merion High School in a suburb of Philadelphia. He was a standout basketball player and earned several awards including the Naismith High School Player of the Year. Kobe decided not to attend college and went straight into professional basketball. He said that if he had gone to college, he would have chosen Duke. He was the 13th player taken in the 1996 draft. The Charlotte Hornets drafted Kobe, but immediately traded him to the Los Angeles Lakers for center Vlade Divac. Kobe was only 17 years old when he was drafted. He had turned 18 by the time his first NBA season started.
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Kobe Bryant Stats:
Kobe Bryant played 20 seasons for the Lakers. He averaged 25.0 points, 5.2 rebounds and 4.7 assists in 1,346 regular-season games. He was selected to play in 18 All-Star games. He won 1 MVP award, 2 Finals MVP awards and 5 NBA championships. He was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2020.
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Kobe Bryant Facts:
Kobe was the first guard to be drafted by the NBA out of high school.
Kobe played for the Los Angeles Lakers his entire professional career.
He was the youngest player to start an NBA game.
Kobe's mom's brother, John Cox, also played in the NBA.
He was named after the Japanese steak "kobe".
His middle name is Bean.
He spent a lot of his childhood in Italy where his father played professional basketball. He learned how to speak Italian and played a lot of soccer.
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Kobe Bryant Achievements:
Kobe scored 81 points in an NBA game, which is the second most points scored in a single game.
He holds the record for the most career points scored by a Los Angeles Laker.
He is the youngest player to score 26,000 career points. He actually held a lot of the "youngest" records in the NBA, but LeBron James is catching him in many categories.
Kobe was the NBA scoring champion in 2006 and 2007.
He was selected to the All-NBA Team fifteen times and the All-Defensive Team twelve times.
At the time of the writing of this article he was third on the all-time NBA scoring list.
Kobe won 5 NBA championships with the LA Lakers. The first 3 championships were early on in his career (2000-2002). All-Star center Shaquille O'Neal was his teammate at the time. After Shaq was traded, it took some time for the Lakers to rebuild, but they won two more championships, one in 2009 and another in 2010.
His high school team won the state championship his senior year.
He won two Olympic Gold medals for basketball in 2008 and 2012.
He was the NBA slam dunk champion in 1997.
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