Kobe Bryant

Kobe Bean Bryant (born August 23, 1978) is an American professional basketball player for the Los Angeles Lakers of the National Basketball Association (NBA). He entered the NBA directly from high school, and he has played for the Lakers his entire career, winning five NBA championships. Bryant is an 18-time All-Star, 15-time member of the All-NBA Team, and 12-time member of the All-Defensive team. He has led the league in scoring twice, and he ranks third on both the league's all-time regular season scoring and all-time postseason scoring lists. After beginning his 20th season with the Lakers in 2015–16, which set an NBA record for the most seasons with the same team, Bryant announced that he would retire after the season.

The son of former NBA player Joe Bryant, Kobe Bryant enjoyed a successful high school basketball career at Lower Merion High School in Pennsylvania, where he was recognized as the top high school basketball player in the country. He declared for the NBA draft upon graduation, and was selected with the 13th overall pick in the 1996 NBA draft by the Charlotte Hornets, who traded him to the Los Angeles Lakers. As a rookie, Bryant earned himself a reputation as a high-flyer and a fan favorite by winning the 1997 Slam Dunk Contest, and he was named an All-Star by his second season. Despite a feud between them, Bryant and Shaquille O'Neal led the Lakers to three consecutive championships from 2000 to 2002.

Kobe

Kobe (神戸市, Kōbe-shi, Japanese pronunciation: [koːꜜbe]) is the sixth-largest city in Japan and is the capital city of Hyōgo Prefecture. It is located on the southern side of the main island of Honshū, on the north shore of Osaka Bay and about 30 km (19 mi) west of Osaka. With a population around 1.5 million, the city is part of the Keihanshin metropolitan area along with Osaka and Kyoto.

The earliest written records regarding the region come from the Nihon Shoki, which describes the founding of the Ikuta Shrine by Empress Jingū in AD 201. For most of its history, the area was never a single political entity, even during the Tokugawa Period, when the port was controlled directly by the Tokugawa Shogunate. Kobe did not exist in its current form until its founding in 1889. Its name comes from "kanbe" (神戸), an archaic title for supporters of the city's Ikuta Shrine. Kobe became one of Japan's 17 designated cities in 1956.

Kobe was one of the cities to open for trade with the West following the 1853 end of the policy of seclusion and has since been known as a cosmopolitan port city. While the 1995 Great Hanshin earthquake diminished much of Kobe's prominence as a port city, it remains Japan's fourth busiest container port. Companies headquartered in Kobe include ASICS, Kawasaki Heavy Industries, and Kobe Steel, as well as over 100 international corporations with Asian or Japanese headquarters in the city such as Eli Lilly and Company, Procter & Gamble, Boehringer Ingelheim, and Nestlé. The city is the point of origin and namesake of Kobe beef, as well as the site of one of Japan's most famous hot spring resorts, Arima Onsen.

Bryant

Bryant may refer to:

Organizations

People

Places

In the United States:

James Harden

James Edward Harden, Jr. (born August 26, 1989) is an American professional basketball player for the Houston Rockets of the National Basketball Association (NBA). Harden played college basketball for Arizona State, where he was named a consensus All-American and Pac-10 Player of the Year in 2009. Harden was selected with the third overall pick in the 2009 NBA draft by Oklahoma City and became the first player drafted in Oklahoma City Thunder franchise history. In 2012, he was named NBA Sixth Man of the Year with the Oklahoma City Thunder while helping them reach the NBA Finals.

Harden was traded to Houston prior to the 2012–13 NBA season. Upon joining the Rockets, Harden became one of the NBA's most prolific scorers and earned recognition as the best shooting guard in the NBA, as well as one of the top overall players in the league. He has earned All-Star nods four times, and has earned All-NBA Team honors three times as well – once to the All-NBA third team (2013) and twice to the All-NBA first team (2014 and 2015). In 2015, Harden was awarded the first National Basketball Players Association MVP Award, being voted by his peers as the league's most valuable player.

Russell Westbrook

Russell Westbrook Jr. (born November 12, 1988) is an American professional basketball player for the Oklahoma City Thunder of the National Basketball Association (NBA). Westbrook played college basketball for the UCLA Bruins and earned third-team all-conference honors in the Pac-10. He was selected with the fourth overall pick in the 2008 NBA draft by the Seattle SuperSonics, who then relocated to Oklahoma City six days later. The point guard is a five-time NBA All-Star and a two-time NBA All-Star Game Most Valuable Player (MVP), winning consecutive awards in 2015 and 2016. He is also a four-time All-NBA Second Team member. Westbrook has also represented the United States on their national team twice, winning gold medals in the 2010 FIBA World Championship and the 2012 Olympics.

Early years

Westbrook was born in Long Beach, California, to Russell Westbrook Sr. and Shannon Horton. Growing up in Hawthorne, Westbrook was a childhood friend of Khelcey Barrs, a talented young player who had been attracting interest from major college basketball schools as a 6-foot-6, 200 pound high school sophomore. However, Barrs died from cardiomegaly after playing a series of late night basketball games in 2004.