Game over. Kobe Bryant officially announced Sunday what any basketball fan had long suspected: He will be retiring from the NBA after this season, his 20th in the league. In a poem — yes, a poem — called “Dear Basketball” for The Players Tribune, he wrote, "This season is all I have left to give. My heart can take the pounding. My mind can handle the grind but my body knows it's time to say goodbye.”
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At age 37, Bryant is no longer the dominant force on the hardwood that he once was, having ceded his place atop the NBA’s list of scoring leaders to players like LeBron James, Kevin Durant and Stephen Curry. But the injuries that kept Bryant off the court for most of the past two seasons — and the struggles he’s had since coming back this season — shouldn’t obscure the astounding numbers Bryant put up in his Hall of Fame career:
12: Players picked before Bryant in the 1996 NBA draft. Bryant entered the NBA draft right after high school, and he wanted to be selected No. 1 overall by his hometown Philadelphia 76ers The Sixers chose Allen Iverson instead, and Bryant wound up being picked by the Charlotte Hornets and then was quickly traded to the Los Angeles Lakers.
18 years, 72 days: Bryant’s age when he played his first NBA game, becoming the youngest player ever to play in the league. Jermaine O’Neal has since broken that record.
17: Times Bryant was selected to the All-Star Game.
12: Times Bryant was named to the NBA’s All-Defensive teams. Only Tim Duncan has more, with 15.
5: Championships Bryant has won with the Lakers.
2: Olympic gold medals Bryant won with Team U.S.A.
1: League MVP award Bryant won, after the 2007-8 NBA season. The Boston Celtics beat Bryant’s Lakers in the NBA Finals that season.
4: NBA Finals MVP awards he won.
2: League scoring titles Bryant has won, in the 2005-6 and 2006-7 seasons.
32,683: Number of points Bryant has scored in his NBA career, as of Monday. He ranks third all-time behind Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Karl Malone. Fourth on the list is Michael Jordan.
1: Bryant’s rank on the list of all-time leaders in missed shots.
81: Points Bryant scored in a game on Jan. 22, 2006, the second-highest single-game total after Wilt Chamberlain’s 100 point game.
24: Games in which Bryant has scored at least 50 points, third most in league history behind Wilt Chamberlain and Michael Jordan.
25.3: Bryant’s career points per game scoring average, 11th highest all-time.
1: Bryant’s rank on a list of the best-selling NBA jerseys in China over the past decade.
$4 million: Amount Bryant famously spent on an 8-carat diamond ring for his wife in 2003, around the time he publicly admitted to cheating on her. Vanessa Bryant filed for divorce in December 2011, but the couple later reconciled.
$105 million: Sales of Nike Kobe Bryant sneakers in 2015.
$2.6 billion: Value of the Los Angeles Lakers franchise as of January 2015, according to Forbes, reportedly up from an estimated $200 million two decades earlier.
$680 million: Bryant’s career earnings, including both salary and endorsements — the most ever in the NBA or any professional team sport. He earned $25 million in salary this year.
