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Once Michael Jordan was getting toward the end of his career and the world hadn’t been introduced yet to LeBron James, the NBA needed someone to fill the gap in between as basketball’s top player. What many didn’t expect, though, was that it would become Kobe Bryant. Bryant became a member of the Los Angeles Lakers, and never looked back, becoming an All-Star nearly 20 times during his career and is considered one of the best players not only of his era, but of all time.

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Bryant was born on August 23, 1978 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania where he’d spend most of his childhood outside of some time in Italy. Bryant’s father was also a basketball player, helping to teach the young boy how to play almost as soon as he could walk. Bryant stood out immediately in youth leagues, and it seemed that the future was very bright when he was still in high school.

Bryant eventually became the star of traveling youth leagues and his varsity team at Lower Merion High School, with a lot of NBA teams scouting him. Bryant then declared for the NBA Draft after his senior year of high school instead of attending college in 1996. The 13th selection in that year’s draft was held by the Charlotte Hornets, and they agreed to trade the selection to the Los Angeles Lakers in exchange for Vlade Divac. The Lakers told the Hornets that they wanted Bryant with the selection, and he was subsequently traded out west in the biggest blunder in Hornets franchise history.

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Bryant did make a huge impact in his first season, mainly coming off of the bench. However, in his second season, Bryant’s stats got a large bump and he was then averaging over 15 points per game. By his third season, Bryant had become an All Star player, putting up nearly 20 points per game. Entering his prime as he was finally reaching his early 20s, Bryant became a prolific scorer.

Bryant started racking up accolades left and right during the 2000s, starting off the decade with an NBA Championship. He and the Lakers would win the first three of the new millennium, and also added NBA titles in 2009 and 2010, with the latter two championships earning Bryant the NBA Finals MVP award. 13 times had Bryant been named to the All-NBA team, including 11 of those being on the top squad.

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Among the biggest highlights of Bryant’s career included earning two Olympic gold medals with team USA and winning the league’s Most Valuable Player award in 2008 thanks to a season where he averaged 28.3 points, 6.3 rebounds and 5.4 assists per game. Some argue that it wasn’t even his top season, as two years prior he had scored more than 35 points per game. Overall, Bryant averaged 25 points, 5.2 rebounds and 4.7 assists per game, which is why he’s considered one of the all-time greats.

After injuries started to mount and Bryant was entering his late 30s, he decided to announce that the 2015-16 NBA season would be his final one, meaning that he played his entire career with the Lakers in an era where players who stick around that long don’t typically play for just one team. It was a fun retirement tour for everyone to watch, including his final game that took place in front of the Los Angeles crowd that included his wife Vanessa and his children.

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That night, Bryant scored 60 points against the Utah Jazz in one of the most anticipated games in recent NBA history. Bryant was certainly the story of the night, as the team hadn’t accomplished much in his final season, finishing with a franchise worst 17-65 mark. Still, that didn’t take away from Bryant’s special night with a raucous crowd behind him.

Because of his long career and playing in one of the largest markets in the world, Bryant has become very wealthy to the tune of a net worth of more than a half billion dollars. Bryant has been the face of many different products that include athletic apparel giant Nike, as well as McDonald’s, Sprite and many others. Not only that, but Bryant has become an investor in recent years, putting in millions of dollars into tech companies that have helped him become even wealthier, as companies like Scopely and Alibaba have really taken off since his investments.

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As one of the greatest players to ever wear a Los Angeles Lakers uniform, Bryant had both of his jersey numbers (8 and 24) retired in late 2017. Since then, especially as the Lakers hadn’t found success on the court in the years after he left basketball, there have been fans that have asked him to come back. According to his wife, though, that isn’t happening.

“Kobe will not be coming out of retirement to play again,” she said. “He doesn’t want to play again and frankly we really enjoy spending time together as a family without the crazy game schedule interfering with birthdays, holidays and special events.”

Bryant has talked about living life after basketball himself, as well. “It’s amazing, when I retired and I had all this schedule and all this stuff to do, and I kept missing times,” he said. “(My wife is) like, ‘Oh, now you see what I had to do this whole time, right?’ And I picked the kids up, and I’d be like five minutes late. Five minutes late. And they get in the car, and they’re like, ‘You’re late.’ I’m like, ‘Dude, I was at the office, I had to finish something.’ And they’re like, ‘Yeah, no. Mom was never late. Never late.’”