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By Kathy Wray Coleman, associate publisher, editor-in-chief

CLEVELANDURBANNEWS.COM, CALABASAS, California- Former NBA megastar Kobe Bryant, who spent his entire 20 years in the NBA with the Los Angeles Lakers as a shooting guard, died in a helicopter crash on Sunday in the hills of Calabasas, California, his 13 year-old daughter Gianna, the pilot and six others, including a college baseball coach and his wife and daughter, dying too.

In short, all nine people aboard the helicopter en route to a AAU basketball game on Jan 26 perished, a life cut short of a legendary athlete who is being mourned across the country, Bryant, 41, leaving behind his wife of 19 years, Vanessa Bryant, and three other daughters, Natalia, 17, Bianka, 3, and Capri, seven months, the youngest born just last June.

One of the greatest players of all time, Bryant's death caught the country off guard, the Utah Jazz, NBA Commissioner Adam Silver, and fellow Blacks like basketball great Michael Jordan, Bostic Celtics legend Bill Russell, former teammate Shaquille O'Neal, and NBA superstar LeBron James among those issuing statements.

Ordinary people who loved and admired Bryant, both off and on the basketball court, were also shocked at the news of his sudden passing.

"The NBA family is devastated by the tragic passing of Kobe Bryant and his daughter, Gianna," said Silver in a statement. "He was one of the most extraordinary players in the history of our game with accomplishments that are legendary, but he will be remembered most for inspiring people around the world to pick up a basketball and compete to the very best of their ability."

Former Cleveland Cavalier and NBA superstar James, an Akron, Ohio native now on the roster of the LA Lakers, and who brought NBA championships to Cleveland and Miami, paid tribute to Bryant only a day before his tragic death, LeBron surpassing him on Jan. 25 to become the league's third highest scorer of all time with 33,655 points.

His death brought LeBron to tears, the New York Times reported, James purportedly seen, via video, tearing up when his team arrived back to LA from Saturday's losing effort in the game against the Seventy-Sixers in Philadelphia, Bryant's native town.

LeBron reflected on Kobe's death to reporters.

"When I was a kid in high school, I was coming up the ranks when Kobe came into the league," James said. "It wasn't a dream of mine to come straight from high school at that point in time into the NBA, but I was like, 'Wow, a 17-year-old, 18-year-old kid, being able to make that jump, that's pretty damn cool. And as I started playing more ball in high school, the things he was doing on the floor I admired and wanted to be a part of."

A native of Philadelphia, Kobe moved to Italy with his family when he was six after his father retired from the NBA, and he spoke Italian fluentently.

He was drafted to the Lakers out of school in 1996 at 18-years-old and became the youngest NBA player to play in a ball game.

He went on to become the youngest NBA player to reach 30,000 league points when he was only 34-years-old, his career also highlighted by 18 consecutive years as All-Star game starter, Bryant an All -Star game contender his second year in the NBA until his retirement from the league in 2016.

In addition to a host of other career accomplishments, including a five-time NBA champion with the Lakers, he is a two-time NBA MVP and won two gold medals in the Summer Olympics in 2008 and 20012 as a member of the U.S. national team.

He once scored 81 points in a single NBA game, and he scored 60 points during his final game before retirement in 2016..

Bryant was also a philanthropist like LeBron James.

He started the Kobe Bryant China Fund, a charity supported by the Chinese government, and was the official ambassador for After-School All-Stars (ASAS), an American non-profit organization that provides comprehensive after-school programs to children in thirteen US cities.

Bryant won an Oscar in 2018 as executive producer of the animated short film 'Dear Mr Basketball,' a a piece based on a poem he wrote that illustrates his journey as a child who loved basketball to stardom with the Lakers.