Five years after Kobe Bryant’s death, reminders remain everywhere in Los Angeles

LOS ANGELES — The Kobe and Gianna Bryant Memorial statue that sits on the south side of Crypto.com Arena, and which was unveiled last August, is both awe-inspiring and awful.

It’s a powerful and worthy piece of art, with the seated NBA star hugging his 13-year-old daughter with his right arm while kissing her on the head. One can feel the affection they shared. An angel’s wings envelops them both from behind, a painful reminder to visitors that they are no longer with us. The helicopter crash that occurred on the hillsides of nearby Calabasas on Jan. 26, 2020, with nine lives lost in all en route to Bryant’s Mamba Academy in Thousand Oaks, ensured that much.

The plaque below, which features the words of a proud father bragging about the second-oldest of his four daughters, is somehow joyful and gut-wrenching all at once.

“Gianna is a beast. She’s better than I was at her age. She’s got it. Girls are amazing. I would have five more girls if I could. I’m a girl Dad.” — Kobe Bryant, Most Valuable Girl Dad

As I sat there soaking in this somber scene early Thursday evening, with thoughts swirling about how to properly reflect on these five years since they died, the fact that Kobe’s words from the past were in the present tense hurt the most. It reads like they’re still here.

The impact of Bryant’s career and the “Mamba Mentality” that defined it, carry on in the kind of way that almost makes you forget that he’s gone. For basketball fans (and writers), he’s so omnipresent on your social media feed that it seems like he’s still around. Young athletes who never truly witnessed his greatness — including my 15-year-old son, who’s a high school wrestler — are still inspired by his work ethic and take-no-prisoners mindset. (True story: my son listens to the “Halloween” theme song in his headphones while channeling Michael Myers before matches because, well, that’s what Kobe did before games.) Bryant’s impact on the culture remains immense.

Even before arriving at the Kobe-Gianna statue, while making the 16-mile drive from LAX to the arena that somehow takes nearly an hour in afternoon traffic, it was impossible to miss all the ways Kobe’s presence remains in the City of Angels. On the corner of Obama Boulevard and La Cienega, on the side of a 7-Eleven, there’s a mural of Bryant and the late rapper and LA native Nipsey Hussle that looks so clean you’d think it had been painted that day. According to Kobemural.com, there are 343 such pieces of art in Southern California (and 646 worldwide).

The souvenir stands outside of Lakers games are still flooded with Bryant gear. It’s not hard to find a car with a ‘Kobe’ license plate cover, featuring No. 8 and No. 24. In Thursday’s game against the Celtics — a 117-96 Lakers win that surely would have made him proud — there was even a video tribute celebrating the anniversary of his 81-point game against Toronto in 2006.

It’s not hard to find pictures of him inside the building, either, including near the Lakers locker room, where there’s one from the Olympics. Bryant, looking so regal in that Team USA jersey, is silencing an international crowd with a finger to his lips. If you walk down that hallway toward the media room, then hang a right past the elevator, you’ll find the loading dock where so many of us used to convince Bryant to spend a few extra minutes discussing the latest game as he strolled out for the night.

But Jan. 26, 2020 happened.

So much tragedy was wrought that day, so much unfulfilled promise — for Kobe and Gianna, but also for John Altobelli, his wife, Keri, and their 14-year-old daughter, Alyssa; Sarah Chester and her 13-year-old daughter, Payton; Christina Mauser, who was an assistant coach at the Academy; and the pilot, Ara Zobayan. The Bryants, of course, are most often talked about because of the imperfect spotlight that comes with fame.

If those winds — which have been recently creating problems for locals yet again — hadn’t kicked up that day, or if the group had chosen not to head out in those harrowing skies, “Gigi” would likely be embarking on her college playing career en route to a WNBA life by now. Kobe, who had already proved to be such a creative force in his post-playing days, would have been courtside (or perhaps even coaching) all the way through. Vanessa Bryant and their three other daughters — Natalia, Bianka and Capri — would still have their family whole.

Can you imagine what kind of glorious havoc Kobe could have wreaked off the floor during these past five years? So many athletes get lost in retirement, but that wasn’t Kobe. In basketball and business, he was on a mission to make a mark until he was old and gray.

The man built, and ran, a multimedia company, Granity Studios, three years before he was done playing. He was the executive producer on his own Showtime documentary, “Muse,” around that same time, but that’s not even the best part about it. As I wrote back then, he called the Hollywood equivalent of a one-four flat on that project, scrapping the entire film when everyone thought they were finished and starting over because something just wasn’t right. Never mind all those interviews that had been conducted that would never see the light of day.

“It was finished,” Bryant told me then of the first version of the movie. “And we just shelved it.”

A year later, they released a version of the movie that made him beam with pride.

He won an Oscar (for his animated short film, “Dear Basketball”) two years after retiring. There was an ESPN show, “Detail,” that showcased his brilliant hoops mind.

Despite the fact that he could have joined Jeanie Buss and helped run the Lakers, he had chosen a different, more fascinating path (though he did play an unofficial part in the re-organization that led to them landing LeBron James). And make no mistake, his level of influence within the NBA remained at an unmatched level. In late August 2019, for example, his invite-only minicamp at the Academy, featuring the likes of Kyrie Irving, Kawhi Leonard, Paul George, Jamal Murray, De’Aaron Fox and 13 others, was the stuff of legend.

The decision to visit the Kobe and Gianna statue was deliberate, an obvious choice for this unenviable task. Truth be told, I’d rather just remember the good times.

Covering Bryant was one of the joys of my career, with my first Finals assignment coming during the Lakers’ epic win over Boston in 2010 when Ron Artest famously shouted that “Kobe passed me the ball!” after Bryant’s 6-of-24 outing in Game 7 (it was my question, I’ll add, that inspired his legendary answer). There were countless memorable interactions with him from then until he retired.

Covering him in retirement was even better, if only because he was more relatable and less intense than before.

Long after Thursday’s Lakers-Celtics game had ended, when all those old memories about Bryant were just sitting there with nowhere to go, I went looking for someone who might understand the experience. Lo and behold, there was Jayson Tatum standing near the visitors’ locker room.

Just that morning, ESPN had published an in-depth piece about how the Celtics forward grew up wishing he could someday play for the Lakers because of his affinity for Kobe. His purple-and-gold dreams were never fulfilled, though, as the Lakers had their hearts set on Lonzo Ball in that 2017 draft. Tatum, who grew up in St. Louis, but was drawn to Kobe’s style from nearly 2,000 miles away, dropped everything he was doing to discuss his hoops hero.

“I remember where I was at the moment when it happened, when I heard the news,” he recalled. “I remember how I felt, just how it kind of impacted me and the rest of the world. When you’re younger, and you’re a kid, and people pass, you don’t really understand it. But s—, I was 21 at that time, and it was somebody I was close with. I was in New Orleans before one of our games, and I remember I was with my dad, and I saw it come across the news. I was just in a daze.

“I cried. And I don’t really claim to be an emotional person. But I remember me and my dad were grabbing something to eat, because I had a groin injury, so I wasn’t playing. We walked back to the hotel, I went to my room, and I cried. I just broke down crying sitting on my couch in the hotel.”

That sadness, for Tatum, myself, and so many others, remains unchanged.

“This was my favorite team when I was growing up,” he continued. “I watched so many games of his playing here. It meant so much for me to come into here and play, because this is where he inspired me to chase my dreams.

“His presence is definitely felt, especially when you come here.”

(Photo: Frederic J. Brown / AFP via Getty Images)