GALLERY: Kobe Bryant, through the years
Kobe Bryant, a former NBA MVP and five-time world champion, died Sunday in a plane crash in Calabasas, California. The longtime Los Angeles Laker's icy personality and behavior off the court kept him a controversial star in the minds of some basketball fans. Still, as a two-time Finals NBA and as the fourth-highest scoring player in league history, there's no denying he was one of the greats. (Photo by Harry How/Getty Images)
1996: Just months removed from graduating from Lower Merion High School in Philadelphia, Kobe Bryant made his NBA debut just a few weeks after his 18th birthday. Though he was drafted by the Charlotte Hornets in the 1996 NBA Draft, he was traded to the Lakers shortly after. He would spend his entire career in Los Angeles. (Al Bello/Getty Images)
2000: Now a budding superstar, Bryant wins his first NBA Finals with the Lakers. The Lakers defeated Reggie Miller and the Indiana Pacers, 4-2. (Ezra Shaw/Getty Images)
2001: The Lakers tandem of Bryant and C Shaquille O'Neal proves to be unstoppable once again, as Los Angeles wins its second straight title. The Lakers defeated Allen Iverson and the Philadelphia 76ers in five games. (Jeff Gross/Getty Images)
Bryant and the Lakers do what few teams have done before — three-peat. Bryant helps lead Los Angeles to its third straight title, a four-game sweep of the Nets. But trouble lay ahead for Bryant, both on and off the court. (Jed Jacobsohn/Getty Images)
2003: A 19-year-old employee at a Colorado hotel accuses Bryant of sexual assault and presses charges against him. The prosecution later drops the charges against Bryant, as the accuser chose not to testify in court. (Pool/Getty Images)
2004: The Lakers' bid for a fourth championship in five years comes up short, as Los Angeles falls to the Detroit Pistons 4-1. Long-simmering tensions with superstar teammate O'Neal bubbled up throughout the 2003-04 season, and following the Finals loss, O'Neal left to join the Miami Heat. (Eliot J. Schechter/Getty Images)
2006: In one of the greatest individual efforts of all time, Bryant scored 81 points against the Toronto Raptors on Jan. 22, 2006. The effort still ranks as the second-highest single-game scoring effort in NBA history behind Wilt Chamberlain's 100-point game in 1962. (Christian Petersen/Getty Images)
2009: Bryant — this time with a completely new cast of characters — helps the Lakers return to championship form in a 4-1 Finals win over the Orlando Magic. (Ronald Martinez/Getty Images)
2010: In what turned out to be Bryant's final championship, he led the Lakers to an epic 7-game series win over their archrivals, the Boston Celtics. Bryant scored 23 points and grabbed 15 rebounds in the winner-take-all final game. (Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images)
2016: Bryant announced the 2015-2016 season would be his last, and he retired in style. With the Lakers eliminated from the playoffs, Bryant said goodbye to the Staples Center crowd with a dominating 60-point performance. Bryant finishes third on the all-time NBA scoring list. Fellow Laker LeBron James would pass Bryant on the scoring list just days before his death.
After his retirement, Bryant decided to run his media venture Mamba Media, full time. In 2017, Bryant wrote and narrated a short film called Dear Basketball. The film won an Academy Award for best animated short film in 2018. (Photo by Matt Sayles/A.M.P.A.S via Getty Images)