I was at the gym. I was on the treadmill running when the screen changed.

And there was a newsman sitting in his desk.

And behind him in the quiron, it said Kobe Bryant had a picture of him and it said in

1978 to 2020.

Five-time NBA champion for the Los Angeles Lakers was killed when a helicopter crashed and caught fire in Southern California.

And my first reaction was, what? Wait, 2020. What? No, that's, that's what you, that's 2020s now. What does that mean? What is that? That's what I thought. What does that mean? What does this mean? When I saw the headline, I mean, it just certainly hits you like a ton of bricks. I didn't want to talk to anybody. I didn't want, I mean, I received text messages from people and I didn't respond to any of them because I didn't want to acknowledge that Kobe was dead. I just never forget when it was confirmed that his daughter, Gigi, was on the helicopter just to hear a woman just start to scream and wail.

And then for me, that was when it was just, it was like, how can this get worse?

And then it was like, oh my God, it's getting worse. It's getting worse.

As far as the where were you moments here in LA, this is the biggest.

It's going to be a day that everyone will remember, you know, unfortunately.

Welcome to the Athletic Podcast Network. I'm Mike Smelts. On this special episode, we're looking back at the 24-hour period from Saturday night to Sunday night surrounding the

Sunday morning helicopter crash in Calabasas that took the lives of nine people.

Kobe and G.G. Brian. John, Carrie and Alyssa Alta Belli. Christina Mouser. Arizabayan and Peyton and Sarah Chester.

A team of writers here at The Athletic will help tell the story of those 24 hours, from Los Angeles to Philadelphia, Atlanta,

New York City, and across the NBA.

Heading into the weekend, Los Angeles sports fans had Kobe on their mind.

Current Lakers star LeBron James was heading into Kobe's hometown of Philadelphia to play

the 76ers, a game where LeBron would pass Kobe as the NBA's third all-time leading score. The weekend, though, became something much different. The athletics Michael Lee was in Philly Saturday night for the Lakers Sixers game. There was a lot of excitement in the arena. It sort of felt like a playoff game coming in. You know, fans were already camped out because the game started at 8.30, so people had nothing else to do on the Saturday. They were just hanging out there from six until just out in the parking lot. People were anticipating a fun night. You know, the Lakers were in town. LeBron was in town. You just knew it was going to be an event. There was a lot of emotion, and they were fired up. They were ready to see their Sixers win and to see LeBron make history and they got their

wish.

LeBron did make the history.

Fans in attendance were hoping he'd make.

An easy layup in the third quarter moved LeBron to third all time on the NBA scoring

...