Bryant taking a shot in 1999Bryant's fortunes improved when Phil Jackson took over as coach of the Lakers in 1999. The Lakers turned championship contenders behind the center-guard combination of Bryant and O'Neal. Jackson utilized the triangle offense that he implemented to win six championships with the Chicago Bulls; this offense would assist both Bryant and O'Neal rise to the elite class of the NBA. Three championships have been won consecutively in 2000, 2001, and 2002, additional cementing this view. The Lakers had been seeking to commerce their beginning middle Vlade Divac for a player's draft rights to free up salary cap space to make a suggestion to free-agent middle Shaquille O'Neal.

On April 2, 2010, Bryant signed a three-year contract extension value $87 million. Bryant finished the regular season lacking 4 of the ultimate five games, due to accidents to his knee and finger. Bryant suffered a quantity of accidents all through the season and in consequence, missed nine games. The Lakers started the playoffs because the primary seed in the Western Conference against the Oklahoma City Thunder, finally defeating them in six video games.

In 2018, Bryant became the primary African-American to win the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film and the first former skilled athlete to be nominated and to win an Academy Award in any category for his filmDear Basketball. On August 22, 2016, Bryant and his enterprise companion Jeff Stibel launched Bryant-Stibel, a enterprise capital firm centered on totally different businesses together with media, data, gaming, and technology, with $100 million in funding. In 2011, Bryant was featured in Taiwanese singer Jay Chou's single, "The Heaven and Earth Challenge" (天地一鬥, pronounced "Tian Di Yi Dou").

His debut album, Visions, was scheduled to launch in the spring of 2000. The first single, "K.O.B.E'", featured supermodel Tyra Banks singing the hook. The single debuted in January 2000, and was performed at NBA All-Star Weekend that month; the music was not nicely acquired. Sony deserted plans for the album, which was by no means released, and dropped Bryant later that year.

This included main the group in assists per recreation and steals per game. The duo of O'Neal and Bryant backed with a strong bench led to the Lakers successful sixty seven video games, tied for fifth-most in NBA history. This followed with O'Neal winning the MVP and Bryant being named to the All-NBA Team Second Team and All-NBA Defensive Team for the first time in his career . While taking part in second fiddle to O'Neal in the playoffs, Bryant had some clutch performances including a 25-point, eleven rebound, 7 help, four block recreation in recreation 7 of the Western Conference finals towards the Portland Trail Blazers.

Similarly, in 2010, American rapper Sho Baraka launched a track called "Kobe Bryant On'em", which was featured on his album Lions and Liars. In 2012, American rapper Chief Keef released a track paying tribute to Bryant called "Kobe". It was featured on his debut studio album, Finally Rich, as a part of the deluxe version.

I grew up with Jordan, Jordan is my favourite participant of all time. But when I received within the sport, Kobe Bryant was that bar for all of us and make no mistake about it we were trying to make him proud. We never in all probability spoke it, mentioned it to the media, or mentioned it to him, but deep down inside, that’s what we have been making an attempt to do. And I suppose he knew, as a outcome of the way that we competed versus each other.

Bryant would have time to do an indication, the day earlier than L.A. It has been three years since NBA legend Kobe Bryant was killed in a helicopter crash on January 26, 2020 in Calabasas, California. Bryant was among nine individuals killed, including his 13-year-old daughter Gianna Bryant, when the helicopter collided with a mountainside. Brown has by no means been inside copyright Arena, the building the Clippers name house, as do the Lakers.