How time flies.
Four years ago on April 13 (2016), Kobe Bean Bryant scored 60 points in the Los Angeles Lakers’ 101-96 victory over the Utah Jazz at the Staples Center in the farewell game of his distinguished 20-year NBA career with the purple-and-gold franchise, all with the Southern California-based Lakers.
In 42:09 minutes, the 6-6 Bryant took a career-high 50 shots from the field with 22 makes, including 6-for-21 from three-point range, and went 10-for-12 from the free-throw line. He also collected four rebounds, four assists, one steal and one block before checking out for good with 4.1 seconds remaining.
The Lakers, who posted a 17-65 record for the worst finish ever in franchise history, trailed by nine points, 75-66, heading into the fourth quarter. But Bryant chalked up 23 points (of the Lakers’ 35) in the payoff period to wind up with 60 points for the fifth highest-scoring game of his brilliant career.
Bryant, a prep-to-pro star who broke into the NBA in 1996 out of Lower Merion High School in Philadelphia, thus became the oldest player ever to score 50 or 60 points in an NBA contest at age 37 years and eight months.
It was Kobe’s best offensive performance since netting 61 markers against the New York Knicks on February 2, 2009 that set a record for the most points scored at the Madison Square Garden by an opponent. It was later duplicated by Houston guard James Harden (a career high 61) in a 114-110 win over the Knicks on January 23, 2019.
Carmelo Anthony, now with the Portland Trail Blazers, still holds the overall MSG scoring record with a career-high and all-time Knicks franchise-best 62 points (23-35 FGA, 6-11 3FGA, 10-10 FTA), which came against the Charlotte Bobcats on January 24, 2014 during his time with New York and surpassed former Knick Bernard King’s MSG scoring record of 60 on Christmas Day 1984.
With 60 points in his final NBA appearance, Bryant, a prep-to-pro star who broke into the NBA in 1996 out of Lower Merion High School in Pennsylvania, thus became the oldest player ever to score 50 or 60 in an NBA contest at age 37 years and eight months.
Nike, the leading sports footwear and apparel company around the world with which Bryant had had a long-time endorsement relationship since 2003, declared April 13, 2016 as “Mamba Day” in honor of the Lakers’ all-time leading scorer and the third-leading regular-season points-producer in NBA annals (until current Laker LeBron James moved past him last January 25 in a game at Philadelp
And minutes after the game was over, Bryant, who earned five NBA title rings with the Lakers (2000-02) and 2009-10), smilingly proclaimed “Mamba Out” before a cheering sellout crowd at the Staples Center.
Less than four years later, Bryant, along with his 13-year-old daughter Gianna and seven other people, would be killed in a fiery helicopter crash in Calabasas, California.
The Body Armor-branded towel, which Bryant had one around his shoulders while addressing the Staples Center crowd on that day of April 13, 2016, was pulled off his shoulder by a fan on his way out of the court. It was later sold in a 2016 auction for $8,365. Following the demise of Bryant, the new owner contacted Iconic Auctions last month to resell it.
On August 29, Bryant (along with NBA player greats Tim Duncan and Kevin Garnett, two-time NBA championship coach Rudy Tomjanovich with the Houston Rockets in 1994 and 1995, and five other personages) will be posthumously inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame.
It comes just six days after Bryant would have turned 42 years old.
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