A very cold open to today's Abcast for obvious reasons the stunning and heartbreaking news to many that Kobe Bryant dies in a helicopter crash just a day after LeBron James

had passed him on the all-time scoring list. The news jolted everybody in the mid afternoon on Sunday and spread of course like wildfire

to the point where you started to say is it possible this is just one of those

internet rumors and then with every minute that passed and with every

non rebuttal of the original story your heart started to sink and your stomach

started to turn itself in knots and your head started to spin.

And your head started to spin,

trying to get your head around this type of news.

Kobe Bryant was on an incredible redemption arc in modern American sports, both from a young

phenom identified at an early age who struggled in his early years with the Lakers became an absolute

icon in the sport and the closest approximation to Michael

to Michael Jeffrey Jordan than any basketball player since

his airness and that is no disrespect to LeBron James but LeBron James is

not like Kobe Bryant. Everybody knows that. In fact, many

Laker fans are still slow to warm up to LeBron James because he's not Kobe Bryant.

That's why they call him Kobe Stands,

STANS, which is a term, I forget exactly the origin but it's those diehards who will go all

the way to the end of the earth for their guy a stand.

Kobe Bryant was on an incredible redemption

because his career right in the middle of it was rocked to the core

by an allegation of rape by a young woman at a hotel in Colorado where he was there to rehab his knee, an allegation

that never made it actually to trial.

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