Kobe Bryant was a colossus of American sport.
The basketball ace played twenty seasons for the LA Lakers, winning five NBA championships and amassing over 33,000 total points in a glittering career.
But the world of sport has been rocked by his death at the age of 41 after a tragic helicopter crash in California.
Tributes have poured in from presidents to former teammates, all of whom praising and celebrating the life of the man known as the ‘Black Mamba’.
Bryant was one of the most lethal guard’s ever to play the game.
His agility and flair defied his 6ft6, 15-stone frame, winning him the 1997 Dunk Contest and thrilling crowds with his athleticism throughout a 20-year career.
The ‘Black Mamba’ nickname wasn’t given to Bryant – instead he adopted it himself back in 2003.
Speaking more than a decade later, he revealed that he took the idea from Quentin Tarantino’s epic film Kill Bill.
In it, an assassin is known by the code name ‘Black Mamba’ and after researching the animal, Bryant believed his basketball skills perfectly mirrored the agility and ruthlessness of both the snake and character.
He told the New Yorker in 2014: “I read up on the animal and said, ‘Wow, this is pretty awesome.
“This is the perfect description of how I would want my game to be.”
Kobe explained further a year later: “What I am when I step on that court, I become that, I am that killer snake.”
The moniker came about in 2003 when Bryant was alleged to have sexually assaulted a 19-year-old woman – a case which was later dropped when the accuser failed to turn up to court.
From then on, Bryant realised that his professional and personal life needed to stay apart, hence the use of the ‘Black Mamba’ nickname.
He explained in 2015 documentary Muse: “I went from a person who was at the top of his game, had everything coming, to a year later, having absolutely no idea where life is going or if you are even going to be a part of life as we all know it.
“I had to separate myself. It felt like there were so many things coming at once. It was just very, very confusing. I had to organise things. So I created The Black Mamba.”
Bryant won five NBA titles with the Lakers, was MVP in 2009, led USA to Olympic gold twice and scored a stunning 33,643 points in his career.
