‘Kobe is responsible for some of my best friendships’: America mourns a national hero who transcended sport

Tributes have come in by seemingly everyone from presidents to kids who grew up playing basketball in New York City parks

A tribute to Kobe Bryant on display outside of Madison Square Garden in New York City on Monday (Clark Mindock)

Dex Alonso arrived early outside New York’s NBA store to pay his respects to Kobe Bryant, the basketball legend whose death has shaken the sporting world.

Mr Alonso was one of a dozen or so people who came to the Fifth Avenue shop early on Monday, waiting outside in the cold for it to open at 10am. They had come to grab a jersey or perhaps a cap as a keepsake.

But they had also come to participate in a nationwide outpouring of grief that has included shocked moments of silence in America’s stadiums and tears from professional athletes inside those same arenas.

There have been moving tributes from seemingly everyone, from presidents to kids, who grew up playing basketball and revering “the Black Mamba” — a larger-than-life figure whose life has been ended, alongside that of his teenage daughter, in a tragic California helicopter crash.

“Me and my friends grew up debating who was the best,” Mr Alonso, 25, told The Independent, describing a discussion that every American who grew up watching Kobe Bryant face off with Michael Jordan and, later, LeBron James, would instantly recognise. “Those debates were responsible for some of my best friendships.”

The death of Bryant at the age of 41, has shown the level of love felt towards the five-time NBA champion, whose career spanned two decades.

During those 20 years, Bryant helped lead the Los Angeles Lakers to five championships, earned himself the second most career All Star team nods at 18, and retired with the third most career points in league history (a ranking he enjoyed up until the night before his death, when James overtook him). And those are just a small selection of the stats that back up his ranking amongst the best to have ever played the game of basketball.

In the hours after his death, virtually every top trending topic on Twitter in the United States was related to the apparently fog-induced crash in Calabasas. And across the country, memorials and tributes popped up everywhere.

His old high school jersey was placed delicately at the centre of a makeshift memorial in front of the gymnasium at his former school in the Philadelphia suburb of Ardmore, Lower Merion High School — a school he had reportedly continued to visit as a superstar, and one that honoured him by putting his name on the gym.

At the Staples Center, where Bryant became a Los Angeles hero, the crowd packed in to pay their respects. Among those spotted mourning were current Lakers guard Quinn Cook, who was seen crying and clutching the same Jersey that had sold out in New York City when Mr Alonso tried to buy it.

Thousands of miles away, at New York’s Madison Square Garden, the sentiment dominated the game between the Knicks and Nets on Sunday night. Bryant played his first All Star game there in 1998 and continually packed the house even as the home-team Knicks dwindled and attracted considerably less enthusiasm (in 2009, Bryant broke the arena’s scoring record too).

On Monday, just outside the Garden, fans still stopped to snap photos of the tribute that was projected across the street before they hurried off to work.

One of those who stopped to take a picture was Caroline, whose son is a basketball player. At 11 years old, he would have been just seven when Bryant retired in 2016, underscoring the enduring legacy of a player whose appeal spans generations. “He admires him a lot,” she said.

While Bryant’s legacy on the court is indisputable, the death of the man whose post-basketball years saw him entering into a second phase of life as a writer and film producer — he won an Oscar in 2018 for his animated film “Dear Basketball” — has nonetheless resurfaced at least one sordid moment from his history.

In 2003, Bryant was accused of rape in Colorado after a 19-year-old hotel worker claimed he had forced himself upon her in his hotel room. Those charges were ultimately dropped after the alleged victim decided against testifying and after a civil settlement that included an apology from Bryant, who maintained his innocence while admitting to adultery.

The investigation into the crash is being led by federal authorities and has already determined that Bryant’s mid-sized helicopter had been flying in foggy weather when it crashed just after 9am. It is expected that the investigation could continue for days.

Meanwhile, the family of Bryant and his 13-year-old daughter Ghianna must now grieve a loss of life that has left the broader NBA family in tears. Orange Coast College coach John Altobelli was also killed in the crash alongside his wife Keri and daughter Alyssa. Christina Mauser, a girls’ basketball coach, was also killed.

Barack Obama, who once praised Bryant during an event at the White House, was among those to share his shock at the death and the potential that was lost in the fog outside Los Angeles.

“Kobe was a legend on the court and just getting started in what would have been just as meaningful a second act,” Mr Obama wrote on Twitter on Sunday. “To lose Gianna is even more heartbreaking to us as parents. Michelle and I send love and prayers to Vanessa and the entire Bryant family on an unthinkable day.”