Shocking News to Retire: Reacts to Lakers Star’s Announcement that….

Shocking News to Retire: Reacts to Lakers Star’s Announcement that….

Shocking News to Retire: Reacts to Lakers Star’s Announcement that….

Most projected Kobe Bryant’s final season in the NBA based on his performance and physical troubles in recent years.

The Los Angeles Lakers star stated in an open letter on the Players’ Tribune that he will retire at the end of the 2015-16 season.

Bryant wrote an open letter to supporters (via Tim Reynolds of the Associated Press):

Pau Gasol, who helped Bryant win two more titles after O’Neal left, also paid tribute to Bryant.

Watching Kobe this year has been quite disheartening for basketball fans everywhere. The greatest scorer of his generation, at 37, entered Sunday averaging 15.7 points per game on 31.5 percent shooting. Rather than adapting his game to the realities of aging, Bryant has remained the same high-volume shooter he was in his heyday, with predictable devastating results.

Still, Sports Illustrated’s Chris Mannix believes that Bryant’s latter years will be mostly forgotten, just like Jordan’s seasons with the Washington Wizards were.

Bryant will finish as the third-highest scorer in NBA history, trailing only Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, and fifth in made field goals. Kobe’s advanced analytics aren’t as generous as they could be, thanks in part to some bad shot selection. Nate Silver of FiveThirtyEight decided to take one more lighthearted poke at the two guards: