Kobe Bryant, Transformational Star of the N.B.A., Dies in Helicopter Crash

Mr. Bryant considered playing college basketball, but decided to jump straight to the N.B.A. in 1996. The previous year, Kevin Garnett had become the first high school player since 1975 to bypass college for the N.B.A. and was a first-round pick. .

Mr. Bryant became one of the first players of his generation to exert control over his career from the very start, heralding a movement of player power that now has the top players functioning nearly as de facto general managers, arranging partnerships and orchestrating movement from team to team with their fellow stars. The New Jersey Nets expressed interest in drafting Mr. Bryant with the eighth overall pick in the 1996 draft, but he and his representatives told team officials that the Nets were not his preferred destination — and even suggested that he would play in Europe if they were to select him.

Instead, the Lakers, long the destination of the league’s matinee idol stars, worked out a deal with the Charlotte Hornets. The Hornets selected Mr. Bryant with the 13th pick and then traded his rights to the Lakers. He wound up spending his entire career in Los Angeles, where he became one of the most revered figures in the franchise’s rich, championship-laden history and a star of Tinseltown, an internationally cultivated citizen of the world, fluent in Italian and Spanish, perfectly positioned for the moment when the N.B.A. and Nike, his chief sponsor, were investing heavily in overseas markets, especially China.

Handsome, gifted and a fierce competitor, Mr. Bryant was a charismatic star when the N.B.A. needed one. Mr. Jordan was on his way out — he retired for the third and final time in 2003 after an unsuccessful comeback with the Washington Wizards — and Mr. Bryant helped fill the void. Before he turned 23, he was a part of three championship teams alongside Mr. O’Neal.

Like Mr. Jordan, Mr. Bryant was a multidimensional scorer. He could shoot from the outside and drive to the rim with flair. He won the N.B.A.’s slam dunk contest as a rookie in 1997, and eventually bulked up so he could keep up with bigger and stronger competition.

Off the court and away from Hollywood’s bright lights, Mr. Bryant’s legacy was far more complicated. He was arrested in 2003 after a sexual assault complaint was filed against him in Colorado. A 19-year-old hotel employee claimed that Mr. Bryant, who was working to rehabilitate his knee after surgery, had raped her. The legal case dragged on for months, and details of the aggressive encounter with the employee and Mr. Bryant’s interview with the police became national headlines.

Prosecutors eventually dropped the case when the victim declined to testify. A civil suit was settled privately out of court for an undisclosed sum, and Mr. Bryant publicly apologized for the incident.