Kobe Bryant, you'll always remain in our hearts

FILE - In this Dec. 30, 2015, file photo, Los Angeles Lakers' Kobe Bryant touches his chest as he walks off the court in Boston after the Lakers' 112-104 win over the Boston Celtics in an NBA basketball game. Kobe Bryant's legacy may be stronger than ever. Tuesday, Jan. 26, 2021, marks the anniversary of the crash that took the lives of Bryant, his daughter Gianna and seven other people. (AP Photo/Winslow Townson, File)

Kobe Bryant wasn’t in the bubble with the Los Angeles Lakers last fall when they won the NBA championship.

He wasn’t at the All-Star weekend in Chicago where half the players wore his number on their uniforms, the other half wearing his daughter’s jersey number.

He wasn’t there to hear the Basketball Hall of Fame announced that his career was worthy of enshrinement.

Yet his presence was so clearly felt in each of those moments.

Bryant, his daughter Gianna and the other seven people who climbed aboard that helicopter on a Sunday morning in Southern California have been gone for exactly one year now — Tuesday marked the grim anniversary of the crash that took their lives.

Tears have been shed. Stories have been told. Tributes have been made.

And if there was any doubt about what kind of legacy Bryant — a five-time NBA champion, still the No. 4 scorer in NBA history, a 20-year veteran of the league — left behind, it has been erased now. He still resonates, maybe more than ever.

“God rest his soul, God rest the soul of Gigi and the seven others that perished,” said Miami assistant coach and former NBA player Caron Butler, who was close with Bryant for years.

“The legacy that he left, man, he did it all. He inspired. When you think about being better, embracing the storm, having the right mentality and perspective about life and always trying to be better, he embodied it all and that’s why his legacy will live forever.”

Bryant is gone, but that doesn’t mean Butler is wavering on a promise he made.

NBA's Los Angeles Lakers Kobe Bryant embraces South Korean students in his basketball clinic for youth in Seoul, South Korea, Thursday, July 14, 2011. Bryant is in Seoul during his five-Asian cities tour. (AP Photo/Lee Jin-man)

Butler famously had a longtime affinity for Mountain Dew, even drinking it during games when others thought he was having Gatorade. When Butler played for the Lakers, Bryant strongly urged him to kick the habit.

Butler was taping an ad last year for Mountain Dew. He took a sip for the cameras. He then spit the drink out.

“Out of respect to my brother,” Butler said.

Butler and Bryant were brothers in the teammate sense. Tony Altobelli lost his actual brother, John Altobelli, in the crash. Alyssa Altobelli was a teammate of Gianna Bryant; she was on the helicopter along with John, her father, and mother Keri.

John Altobelli was the baseball coach at Orange Coast College in Southern California. Tony Altobelli is the sports information director at that school; sports information directors are tasked with promoting their teams, in good times and bad, always trying to find a positive way to tell a story. And somehow, even for a story this painful, Tony Altobelli has managed to do that.

His brother died with Kobe Bryant. That’s how the world got to know who his brother was.

“It takes a little bit of the sting off what happened. I’ve kind of jokingly said if it had to happen, I’m glad a global figure was with him when it happened because now the whole world knows about my brother, my sister-in-law and my niece. And I think that’s pretty cool.”

The Lakers were in the air when the news broke, flying home from a game in Bryant’s hometown of Philadelphia.

Word spread around the NBA quickly; the Golden State Warriors were just starting practice when someone there found out.

“Everything stopped,” Warriors coach Steve Kerr said. “The music stopped. The players stopped. Nobody said a word. A lot of guys dropped to the floor and started crying."

“I don’t think any of us will ever forget that day,” Kerr said.