His death certainly was felt in Atlanta, where any visit by Bryant's Lakers was reason to actually attend a Hawks game. Sunday evening inside State Farm Arena, Trae Young led a wake that masqueraded as a game. Overflowing with respect, the kid did one of his idols right.
On Peachtree Street, another tribute: Georgia's Own Credit Union will flash a purple and gold "THANK YOU MAMBA" sign atop its building through Wednesday. Bryant is on a nickname basis even here, nearly 2,200 miles from the franchise he called home.
Bryant's legacy is now sadly and forever linked to those other athletes who have died too young, too suddenly, too inexplicably. Rock 'n roll has nothing on sports when it comes to tragic crashes.
There is a separate place in our memories for certain of those whose great careers were underscored by a fatal accident.
Baseball gives the Roberto Clemente Award every year to the player who "best exemplifies the game of baseball, sportsmanship, community involvement and the individual's contribution to his team." The Pirates star was three years younger than the 41-year-old Bryant when in 1972 he died in a plane crash off Puerto Rico, attempting to deliver aid to earthquake victims in Nicaragua.
And golf hands out the Payne Stewart Award to the gent whose "values align with the character, charity and sportsmanship that Stewart showed." Back in 1999, the two-time major winner died when the private jet he was aboard failed to pressurize, wandered off course and crashed after running out of fuel.
How the NBA chooses to memorialize Bryant will be worth watching. The five-time NBA champion, a league and Finals MVP will go into the Hall of Fame this year by acclimation. The competitive heat he brought to his sport _ an uncompromising and sometimes nettlesome nature he turned on opponents _ is worthy of somehow perpetuating. But there also is the one ugly chapter of his legacy with which to contend, a 2003 rape allegation in Colorado that took 14 months to resolve. His accuser eventually declined to testify and settled a civil suit out of court in 2005. Bryant admitted to adultery, but never rape.
When actually taking account of all the well-known athletes who have died in a manner like Bryant, the list is rather stunningly long. It seems that our sports figures, no matter their stature or how indomitable they appear on game day, are just as vulnerable as the clumsiest among us.
Yankees captain Thurman Munson (plane crash, 1979).
The 1992 Daytona 500 winner Davey Allison (helicopter crash, 1993).
Charismatic distance runner Steve Prefontaine (car crash, 1957).
Two-time All Star pitcher Jose Fernandez (boating accident, 2016).
Two-time Cy Young winner Roy Halladay (2017) and former unbeaten heavyweight champion Rocky Marciano (1969), in plane crashes.
Lorenzo Charles, who will forever be known for slamming home the winning basket for North Carolina State in its NCAA championship upset of Houston in 1983. He died in 2011 when the bus he was driving crashed outside Raleigh.
That's just to name a few of the athletes and the range of conveyances in which they met their end. To one extent or another, their deaths all caused a collective gasp within their sport.
In many of these sports-themed tragedies, there was the lone, well-known casualty. Nine people died Sunday when a helicopter went down near Calabasas, Calif. One of them was famous, his second act as a father and a creative entrepreneur cut obscenely short.
For so long, Kobe Bryant was a singular talent. He stood alone in his field. He was not alone Sunday. His is but the face of a many-layered heartbreak.
