https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/28569438/kobe-bryant-dead-helicopter-crash

I got the notification on my phone and couldn't believe it.

I was never a huge fan of his but this is pretty shocking to read about. I didn't see who was with him in the crash but sounds like at least 5 people died in the crash.

Pretty awful thing to have to deal with.

The big thing for me here is that there's a lot of misinformation going around, particularly around who else is involved.

We know Kobe Bryant died. We know there was a helicopter crash. We know that there were 5 deaths and no survivors.

But we have a million stories about who was in the helicopter besides him. I'm just glad that it appears his daughters were not onboard.

What a tragedy.

Kobe Bryant transcends sports. He transcends art. He's become a part of our culture that we cannot deny. This is the single largest celebrity death of my life-time, rivaled by only Muhammad Ali.

Prayers for his family, including his four daughters who now have to grow up without a father. And if you saw how he treated his daughters and spoke about them... it's just all the more heartbreaking.

Kobe was a lot of things. He was alleged to have done some really bad things too. But Kobe was an incredible father to his daughters.

Opening up the TMZ story this morning, I couldn't believe it. It always hurts to lose somebody who has meant to much to millions of people around the world, but for an icon like Kobe to die at 41, still in the public eye and with so much ahead of him, is devastating.

Kobe was monumental not just for the sports world, but for so many other things he did off the court and in the community. I grew up watching Kobe and its difficult to know that he is gone.

Reports earlier said his family was not on the helicopter, making it even harder to learn his daughter Gianna was also aboard and died in the crash.

I wish the best for the Bryant family, and for the families of the others on board. Things like this are truly tragic.

I've made it no secret in the past that I am not a basketball guy. I went to high school in North Carolina, so all I ever heard about was UNC vs Duke this, Duke vs UNC that, and it got old, real quick.

However, I'm huge into sports, and I am currently aiming for a sports historian job when I graduate in May. I would be a fool to not know who Kobe is, and the impact that he had on Los Angeles, society, and the basketball world. The dude was an absolute legend.

When I saw the title of the thread, when I was refreshing to put another trap down for Vizzed Go, I thought it was some kind of joke because I saw last night while scrolling through Facebook that LeBron had passed Kobe for 3rd all-time in scoring. Then I saw that it was geeo who posted, and thought "there's no way that geeo would make that kind of a joke." So, while I was waiting for the page to finish refreshing, I switched to my Facebook tab, and the first post is from a sports card group that said that they weren't going to allow any Kobe cards to be put up for sale for a days, out of respect. I immediately started freaking out, because even though I couldn't give a damn about basketball, I still couldn't believe it. He's an abos***e legend. It would be like hearing that Tom Brady, Muhammed Ali, Wayne Gretsky, Tony Hawk, Shawn White, Derek Jeter, or any other number of guys dying out of nowhere; it doesn't matter if you don't follow any of those sports, you still know how important those guys are to their sports, pop culture, and society.

This is insane... I just can't believe that one of the all time GOAT's is gone. It's just... you know? You aren't expecting it.

#RIPKobeBryant

As I didn't really know anything about the guy, I don't have a personal connection to him. But what this illustrates to me is how human public figures are, and how horrifying aspects of our advanced civilization can be. If helicopters didn't exist, this would've been impossible. I don't know the details of the crash, but I have a feeling helicopters are not easy to escape from when they're heading down.

It's extremely unfortunate that one of his daughters was in the crash. I picture how scary the last moments would have been for all of them, and it sends a sense of dread through my being. I feel particularly bad for the surviving daughter. She lost a father and a sister in the blink of an eye, you can't possibly know how that feels without experiencing it. I'm sure she's still at the stage of denial, but the entire family will be changed forever.

I saw all the mess you guys were bringing up in Discord, but only when I saw it on my local news flash I accepted it as a reality and not a fake news.

I'm not a fan of basketball, but still somebody like me knows about Kobe Bryant and is able to grasp a little bit of his legendary status. It really hurts to hear someone dying on an accident when they have so much still ahead of them, and I'm almost sure that the slight rainfall we had hours ago was actually the heavens mourning such a tragic and irreparable loss.

Out of all the people who could have a lethal accident, it had to be one of the people who least deserved it. The world being such an unfair place is what has my mind pondering about certain things. And I wouldn't be surprised to hear theories that Kobe was in fact killed off, due to how things have happened and at what timing, no matter how absurd this may sound.

My condolences to all the people overseas affected by this loss. The world will be such a different place tomorrow when the sun comes up and we realize it wasn't all a nightmare. Kobe will be missed, but never forgotten.

You know, I am highly shock and sadden that Kobe Bryant got killed in a Helicopter Crash. My brother is the one who told me about him passing, and I was like "there is no way he passed, he's way too young". Then I look it up and sadden to see it with my own two eyes, I seen the news story stating that Kobe Bryan did in fact passed away.

I have watched Kobe during his hay days in the 2000's, and I can tell, he is one phenomenal player since the days of Michael Jordan, brought multiple NBA Finals wins, and really put the Lakers on the map.

You know, there is always a saying, "Everyone is going to die, every one of us, and the only thing is that we all don't know when that day is". Which means, any one of us can even die tomorrow, you, me, any one of us. You just live life like it's your last.

RIP Kobe, you sir are one hell of an athlete.

I didn't even get a notification. I was on Twitter and saw someome tweet out a photo of the TMZ headline moments after it happened. Since it was so soon, nobody else was confirming it so I had a hard time believing it. But I realized that if he was okay, he would have said something once the rumors started going around, so that was when it really started to hit. He Will be missed greatly.

We're less than a month into 2020 and this year has already been terrible.

At first I saw my friend posted a picture on our discord server we have and I didn't think it was true. I looked it up about 30 minutes later on my computer at work and I saw a few headlines, one from TMZ in particular but I still was in denial. I was waiting on a article from ESPN and surely enough, they put out and article and it was all over the news. I am deeply saddened by this because he was one of my inspirations to play basketball when I was in high school. It makes you put things in perspective when terrible stuff like this happens because then it gets your mind racing about your significant others and this could happen to anyone. It saddens me even more to know that an entire family was in that helicopter and they have passed away as well. Regardless, I'm seeing people drop gloves about the discussion about if Kobe or LeBron is the GOAT and just seeing Kobe appreciation posts brings me joy. I watched so many Kobe highlights after this happened because he was truly one of the greats.