Kobe Bryant Discussed Dying Young, Being 'Comfortable' With Death Before Fatal Helicopter Crash

Kobe Bryant’s death shocked the sports world when the NBA legend, his daughter and seven other people were killed in a helicopter crash Sunday morning in Calabasas, California. Bryant was just 41 years old.

Playing 20 seasons with the Los Angeles Lakers and winning five championships, Bryant achieved more during his NBA career than almost anyone that’s ever played professional basketball.

Just a few months after he retired from the league in 2016, Bryant was asked by The Ringer’s Micah Peters about his relationship with death.

“It’s a comfortable one,” Bryant said. “It’s an understanding. You can’t have life without death. Can’t have light without the dark. So it’s an acceptance of that. When it came time to decide whether or not I should retire, [it was] really an acceptance of that mortality that all athletes face. And if you combat it, you’ll always have that inner struggle within yourself. … So … I’m comfortable with it.”

Bryant is fourth on the NBA’s all-time scoring list—he was third until LeBron James passed him Saturday night—with 33,643 career points, putting him one spot ahead of Michael Jordan. His five championship rings put him one shy of Jordan’s six titles.

Entering the league as Jordan was headed toward the end of his career, Bryant was viewed by many as the unofficial successor to the greatest NBA player of all time. Bryant measured himself against Jordan, chasing his records and attempting to surpass the accomplishments of the Chicago Bulls great.

“This sounds crazy, but Kobe spoke this. He spoke this,” former NBA star Tracy McGrady said on ESPN’s “The Jump” Monday afternoon. “He used to say all the time, ‘I wanna die young...I wanna be immortalized. I wanna have my career be better than Michael Jordan and I wanna die young.’”

Jordan and Bryant are arguably the two best shooting guards the NBA has ever seen. The former Lakers’ star might be one of the 10 best overall players in league history, as well as the most popular athlete in Los Angeles sports history.

Bryant is certain to be a first-ballot Hall of Famer when he becomes eligible to be inducted later this year.