Reflecting on the life and legacy of Los Angeles Lakers legend Kobe Bryant

The greatness of Los Angeles Lakers’ legend Kobe Bryant went beyond the basketball court. Bryant passed away on Sunday in a helicopter crash in California.

As a friend of mine put it moments before I wrote this, most celebrity deaths don’t impact me on a deep level simply because I don’t know these individuals in a real personal sense. When I first heard that former Los Angeles Lakers star Kobe Bryant was killed in a helicopter crash along with eight other people on Sunday near his home in Calabasas, Calif., it actually took the breath out of my chest.

I didn’t know Kobe, but I had met him a couple of times and watched him master his craft of basketball in person a few times.

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When I saw him pick apart my SuperSonics in Seattle during his first season as the undisputed leader of the Los Angeles Lakers and probably as the face of the NBA, I realized I was watching the best athlete I’d ever seen in person at that point.

What marveled me more than the physical ability was the way Kobe navigated the game mentally. He scored 30-something points that night, making all of the tough shots you’d come to expect from Kobe, but his passing and court vision were what really stood out to me.

I wrote one Dime Magazine cover feature on Kobe in 2010 — the same year he led the Lakers to the fifth and final NBA championship of his career — and I was involved in putting together a handful of magazine issues with Kobe on the cover.

So as people in the media industry would say, I’d worked with Kobe before and had the fortune of getting closer to him than most of his adoring fans would have the opportunity to get.

One of the most memorable professional compliments I’ve received was when Kobe responded to one of my interview questions with, “Man, you’re on some Barbara Walters (expletive).” I took that to mean I’d asked him a question that really made him think.

I try not to take those things for granted, witnessing greatness up close.

When I began covering the Lakers for HoopsHabit last year, I joined a handful of Lakers fan groups on Facebook — in part to have a platform to share my work and in part to get a sense of the pulse of the team’s fan base.

One thing I can say is that I cannot think of an athlete who has a more loyal group of fans than Kobe. To many of them, he was the Lakers. He was L.A.

The resume is memorized even by people who didn’t necessarily like Kobe. Five championships, two NBA Finals MVP awards, one league MVP, league scoring leader two times. He finished his career No. 3 on the league’s all-time scoring list.

Going into Sunday morning, I had two unfinished HoopsHabit columns in my files: One was a ranking of the top 10 shooting guards in the history of the Lakers. It’s easy to guess who was going to have the No. 1 spot on that list. The other had the working title, “Kobe Bryant’s case for G.O.A.T.”

It was a legitimate case to make and that is not just mournful nostalgia speaking.

Adding to the tragedy is the news that Kobe’s 13-year-old daughter Gianna was among those killed in the crash. Gianna was a budding basketball star in her own right, one many people had already figured to be a shoo-in for the WNBA in her future.

Kobe had been involved in coaching Gianna. While I believe we’re in an era in which NBA stars will get into coaching less often than in previous eras — they make enough money that they don’t need the post-playing pressure that is coaching — it didn’t surprise me that Kobe was a coach.

His love for the game and his relentless curiosity about learning the game are two of the elements that good coaches are made of.

That Kobe died in a manner so similar to baseball legend Roberto Clemente spoke to me.

Both were lost in aircraft accidents; Clemente was 38 years old, Kobe was 41. Both had been living legends in the athletic realm and had an influence that reached beyond sports.

As another friend said Sunday, may he rest in power with the great ones.