Kobe Bryant was not in the bubble with the Los Angeles Lakers last October when he won the NBA championship. He was not on the All-Star weekend in Chicago, where half the players wore their number on their uniforms, the other half wore their daughter’s shirt number. He was not there to hear the Basketball Hall of Fame announce that his career was worthy of acclaim.
However, his presence was felt so clearly in each of these moments.
“Everything stopped,” Golden State Warriors coach Steve Kerr told reporters last week. “The music stopped. The players stopped. Nobody said a word. Many guys fell to the floor and started to cry. Nothing happened for 10 minutes. We all just sat in silence. It was one of the worst moments of all our lives. “
“Jarron Collins came up to me and whispered the news in my ear. I think it was the same thing that some people on our team whispered to some players on our team. We were all like a deer in the headlights, you know? We just froze and we all tried to absorb the news and everything stopped. “
Bryant, his daughter Gianna and the other seven people who boarded that helicopter on a Sunday morning in Southern California have been gone for exactly a year now – Tuesday marks the sad anniversary of the accident that took their lives.
Tears were shed. Stories have been told. Tributes were paid.
And if there was any doubt about what kind of legacy Bryant – five-time NBA champion, still the No. 4 scorer in NBA history, a 20-year veteran in the league – left behind, has now been erased. It still resonates, perhaps more than ever.
“May God have his soul, may God have the soul of Gigi and the other seven who died,” said Miami assistant coach and former NBA player Caron Butler, who has been close to Bryant for years. “The legacy he left, man, he did everything. He inspired. When you think about being better, embracing the storm, having the right mentality and perspective on life and always trying to be better, he has incorporated everything and that is why his legacy will live on forever ”.
Bryant is gone, but that doesn’t mean Butler is hesitating on a promise he made. Butler became famous for having a long-standing affinity with Mountain Dew, even drinking during games, when others thought he was having Gatorade. When Butler played for the Lakers, Bryant strongly encouraged him to kick the habit.
Butler was recording an ad last year for Mountain Dew. He took a sip for the cameras. He then spat out the drink.
“Out of respect for my brother,” said Butler.
Butler and Bryant were brothers in the sense of teammates. Tony Altobelli lost his real brother, John Altobelli, in the accident. Alyssa Altobelli was a teammate with Gianna Bryant; she was in the helicopter with John, her father and mother Keri.
John Altobelli was the baseball coach at Orange Coast College in Southern California. Tony Altobelli is the school’s director of sports information; The sports information directors have the task of promoting their teams, in good and bad times, always trying to find a positive way of telling a story. And somehow, even for such a painful story, Tony Altobelli managed to do that.
Her brother died with Kobe Bryant. That was how the world found out who his brother was.
“It’s good to see your memory and just your way of life being celebrated by people far beyond our region,” said Tony Altobelli. “It takes some of the sting out of what happened. I kind of jokingly said that if it had to happen, I’m happy that a global figure was with it when it happened, because now the whole world knows about my brother, my sister-in-law and my niece. And I think this is really cool. “
Christina Mauser also died in the accident; she was one of the coaches at Bryant Academy. Tony Altobelli and Mauser’s husband, Matt, became friends last year; they didn’t know each other before January 26, 2020. Matt Mauser organized a concert to honor those who died in the accident and to serve as a benefit to the foundation he started in memory of his wife; is broadcast on Tuesday night.
Sarah Chester and her 13-year-old daughter Payton, another of the players along with Gianna and Alyssa, were also on board. Pilot Ara Zobayan was also killed. The Lakers were on the air when the news broke, returning from a game in Bryant’s hometown, Philadelphia.
The Lakers are not planning any formal appointments for the day, nor is the NBA. It is not a day of celebration. It is a day of remembrance, not that it is necessary.
Bryant’s legacy lives on. It will not be forgotten. Nor January 26, 2020.
“I don’t think any of us will ever forget that day,” said Kerr.