CHICAGO — Kobe Bryant’s presence was felt throughout NBA All-Star 2020.
Starting on Friday and continuing through the weekend, the tributes and speeches honoring Bryant were endless and rightly so for the late 18-time All-Star who tragically died on Jan. 26 in a helicopter crash.
On Saturday night, NBA commissioner Adam Silver announced that the NBA All-Star MVP award, which was previously not named after anyone, would been permanently named after Bryant, who was a four-time recipient of the award himself in 2002, 2007, 2009 and 2011.
“To all of us, it seemed like the appropriate way to bring honor to him,” Silver said.
Following Sunday night’s NBA All-Star Game, Kawhi Leonard was awarded the inaugural Kobe Bryant NBA All-Star MVP trophy after scoring a game-high 30 points and for Team LeBron, which won the game 157-155.
The award was the final piece of a Sunday night that was full of tributes to the Lakers star, who on Friday was announced as a posthumous member of the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame, Class of 2020.
Utah Jazz All-Star Donovan Mitchell said when he thinks about Bryant, it’s not necessarily basketball that comes to mind first. Instead, he said, he thinks about dedication.
“People talk about obviously what he did on the court, but the dedication for him as a father, the dedication he showed as an author, as a director, he was always pushing boundaries and finding ways to be better,” Mitchell said.
Though All-Star weekend became an unofficial ongoing tribute to Bryant, Mitchell noted that once the All-Star break is over, Bryant’s memory will, without question, live on through the way NBA players approach their games and workouts on a daily basis.
It’s the Mamba Mentality that has become a part of the NBA lexicon.
“As a 23-year-old kid and having days where you’re tired, you’re like, ‘Well, Kobe was tired,’” Mitchell said. “So you find ways to push yourself through.”
Leading into Sunday’s headline event in which Team Giannis players all wore jersey No. 24 (for Kobe Bryant) and Team LeBron players wore No. 2 (for Bryant’s daughter Gianna, who also died in the crash), Magic Johnson led the crowd at the United Center in a moment of silence for Bryant, asking all in attendance to join hands.
Johnson then introduced multi-award winning recording artist Jennifer Hudson, who honored Bryant with a performance while a video tribute played throughout the arena.
Rapper Common followed Hudson with an All-Star tribute rap that heavily featured Bryant as images of Chicago and All-Star moments from the past played behind him. When he came to a portion on Bryant, the United Center was illuminated with Lakers-style gold and purple lights.
The images of Bryant continued throughout the night, played during the game’s halftime performances, which included Chance the Rapper.
Bryant, who made his All-Star debut in 1998 as a 19-year-old, will forever be memorialized during All-Star weekend not only with the NBA All-Star trophy that now holds his name, but as a figure who will continue to be talked about as one of the best to have ever been featured in the NBA’s annual event.