It’s hard to believe that it’s only been a year since the tragic helicopter crash that took the lives of 9 people, including Kobe Bryant and his daughter Gianna. 

In the days immediately following his death, some of his friends and former teammates started to get tattoo tributes to Bryant. Bryant’s widow, Vanessa had touching tributes to Kobe and Gianna tattooed by Nikko Hurtado, as well as a script tattoo honoring her entire family tattooed by Mister Cartoon. Soon after we started to see tattoo tributes coming from other notable celebrities and hardcore basketball fans. 

Bryant was not only a phenomenal scorer on the court, but his career happened at the perfect time for him to become an international icon. Bryant’s prime started right as Michael Jordan’s career was petering out in D.C. and it ended around the time that Lebron James started to dominate in Cleveland, thus serving as a bridge between two of the three greatest players to ever play the game. [This humble writer would add Bill Russell into the mix for Top 3, Bryant is in the Top 10 somewhere, where I place each of them in the list fluctuates on my moods.] For fans of a certain age, and for most Lakers fans, Bryant was the best player they’ve ever seen. Personally, I’ll never forget those nights, like that one against Toronto when he went for 81 in 2006, where you knew every time the Lakers had the ball, Bryant would be shooting it. It didn’t matter that he was missing shots, he always had 100% confidence the next one would be going in and a lot of time he would be right. It was always quite a thing to behold. 

There were so many legendary moments in Bryant’s career and pretty much all of them have been captured by a tattoo in the gallery below. Sound off on our social media channels and let us know what your favorite moment of his career was.