Kobe Bryant left legacy of joy in LA area

Kobe Bryant and his daughter Gianna dropped by their favorite nail salon on New Year's Eve. When he got up to pay, store manager Nancy Vu asked whether he had dinner plans for the evening.

"He said he was going home to his family," Vu recalled recently in an interview with China Daily at Happy Nails salon in the Newport Coast Shopping Center, in Newport Beach, California, where the basketball legend and his family had been regulars for more than a decade.

Vu described the Bryants as "a wonderful family, from kids to wife, to Kobe".

It would be the last time that the 41-year-old retired Los Angeles Laker and Hall of Famer and his 13-year-old daughter Gianna (Gigi) would visit the store.

A couple of weeks later on a foggy Sunday, Bryant, Gigi and seven others perished when their helicopter crashed into the side of a hill in Calabasas, a town around 27 miles (43 km) from Los Angeles.

The Jan 26 accident shocked the world.

In Newport Beach, an affluent coastal city that Bryant called home for nearly 20 years, he was an active community member who attended church regularly, spent time with his family and enjoyed chats with locals.

Bryant usually sat in the corner enjoying quiet time, Vu recalled, but was always willing to cooperate whenever a customer asked for a picture.

In the days after his death, mourners created makeshift shrines with purple-and-gold Lakers-themed flowers, posters, as well as balloons across various locations in town, including outside his home and in front of the stores he regularly visited.

At Krave Kobe Burger Grill, photos and memorabilia of the five-time NBA champion take up an entire wall.

At the restaurant, Bryson Smalls, 17, a junior at Sage Hill School, which Bryant's eldest daughter, Natalia, also attends, recalled the many times that Kobe Bryant helped him improve his basketball skills during practices at school.

"He would be practicing with Gianna, so I'd see him a lot, and he would often come and talk to me, mess around with me. He was just a fun guy, a good guy to always be around, and he never put out any negative vibes; he was just someone that cared about everybody," said Smalls.

"He was one of the biggest stars in the world, but to a lot of people around our area, he was just Mr. Bryant. He treated us like normal people, and he didn't see himself as someone that was bigger than everybody else," Smalls added.

Bryant's work ethic also inspired Smalls to strive harder to reach his goals.

"Like every time I would stay after and saw him, he just made me want to stay after more, made me want to work harder. So I was waking up early mornings, too, as (well) as showing up early to practices, and staying late," he said.

According to Tamara Miguez, who has lived in Newport Beach for 10 years, in the weeks before his tragic death, Bryant witnessed a car accident in the neighborhood and got out of his car to help the victims of the crash.

"Everybody saw him around quite frequently," she said. "He would drive around with his windows down and wave to everybody, talk to the kids, very friendly."

In Newport Ridge Community Park, where Bryant frequently played basketball and tennis, Jeff Mayhew, who also coaches youth basketball, said Bryant was a big part of the community and will be sorely missed.

"Everybody is sad not only because of Kobe, but because that it involves our community so much. The people there are just normal people, who loved their daughters, loved their kids, and he just happens to be famous, but he is one of those great people who loved their kids," he said.

"One thing about his daughters, they are the nicest people in the world. It really shows what a great man he is to raise them that way," Mayhew said.

According to neighbors and community members, Bryant was also an avid tennis player, taking up the sport after his retirement from the NBA. He could often be seen playing with friends at the tennis courts in Newport Beach.

A woman who was taking her son to the park stopped by to chat but didn't reveal her name. She said Bryant liked to do volunteer work and coach children at his daughter Natalia's school.

"We all think he's a great father. He and wife, Vanessa, were always present during big events in school. Parents of kids would ask to take photos with him during these events, and he was often very nice about it," she said. "He is just a down-to-earth, humble guy."

Outside a gated community where Bryant and his family lived, fans and community members went to pay tribute, adding fresh flowers, candles and balloons as well as hand-drawn photos of the late NBA star and Gigi to the growing makeshift memorial.

Aurella Van Duyne, a longtime community member, said she went to honor Bryant and the other victims because "it's a big deal in our community."

"I think he was a part of our family, grew up in our living rooms, and beyond all that, I think it's just also how he has become a father, that to me, all people on that helicopter were there for their kids, that got me, because they were all being wonderful parents," she said.

Van Duyne said one of her sons had met Bryant a couple of times before, as did her nephew.

"Everybody here in this community just connects to him so much. It's like they grew up with him, in their living rooms, via TV," she added.

John and Hilda Contreras, a retired couple from Downey, California, said they drove 40 minutes to Newport Beach to pay their respects.

"I just want to be somewhere where we are close to where he is. We've been crying all week, my daughter and all of us," Hilda Contreras said, adding, "Kobe brought joy to our house for 20 years. We watched all of his games; he's going to be sorely missed."

Contreras' husband said Bryant's work ethic, his character, as well as his compassion for other players made him an instrumental figure to young athletes and an idol to youth around the world.

"It's like you're losing a member of your family, you feel bad. He wasn't a member of our immediate family, but yet here we are, traveling all over the place, crying all week. So it's like losing a member of your family," he said.

A memorial event — "A Celebration of Life" — for Kobe and Gianna Bryant will be held at 10 am on Feb 24 at Staples Center, where the Lakers play, Vanessa Bryant announced on Instagram.

On Thursday at Staples Center, LeBron James, a current NBA superstar and Lakers player, paid tribute to Bryant with a version of a classic Kobe Bryant dunk. James did a double-clutch reverse slam against the Houston Rockets that was similar to one Bryant performed in a 2001 game.

"Ever see the movie The 6th Man?" James asked reporters Friday after the Lakers' 125-120 win over Golden State, Sports Illustrated (si.com) reported. "Kobe came down, put himself in my body and gave me that dunk on that break.

"To now [have it] be a part of my history between that correlation between me and Kobe, that play, I think it's pretty, pretty, pretty awesome," James said. "I'm glad I did it in a Laker uniform."

At Staples Center, there are large posters of Bryant and his daughter everywhere, while fans of different races, ages and sexes flooded the plaza to say their goodbyes to Bryant.

Some fans mourned in silence. Others walked into the plaza with bouquets of fresh flowers in hand and then silently prayed in front of a poster of Bryant. Still others chose to write their feelings on the floor in front of the plaza.

Every once in a while, shouts of "Thank you, Kobe", "Kobe you changed us" and "Kobe Mamba forever" could be heard around the plaza along with choruses of "Kobe! Kobe!"

As night fell, more people began to gather around the plaza.

A crowd of mostly young people assembled near the front of the plaza. They played a game during which one shoots a wadded-up ball of paper into a waste basket while shouting "Kobe". The game was a tribute to Bryant's fadeaway jump shot.

"He made a lot of shots in tough situations. He worked hard. He is the best player to ever set foot on a basketball court. It just symbolizes the shot that he had, his endurance, and his power. It means a lot to us LA natives," explained Chris Aguilar, a 26-year-old from Boyle Heights.

As soon as someone made a "basket", the group gathered around with congratulatory hugs and cheers, but even their wide smiles could not hide the tears in their eyes.

Aguilar was at Staples Center with several of his friends. When he was 15, Bryant was in the neighborhood to shoot a commercial, he said. He and his friends waited six hours in the rain to see the star player.

Aguilar recalled that Kobe came to say hello to his young fans when the filming was over. He even apologized because he couldn't talk to them and give them autographs because his bodyguards didn't allow it.

"He changed the game a lot. He kept a lot of kids off the street. When I was little, I would never go home. The only reason why we would go home was to watch him play. He brought people together, you know," Aguilar said.

Bryant died just four days before his 42nd birthday.

"He changed basketball, pretty much what he did on and off the court. He was a hard worker, showed a lot of ambition, he taught a lot of people that if you wanted something bad, you go get it. He taught a lot of people to never give up; that means a lot to us," he said.

Heng Weili in New York contributed to this story.