Although Sunday marked a difficult anniversary, the basketball world has been contemplating Kobe Bryant's legacy throughout the past five years. Multiple NBA stars spoke with Yahoo Sports last year about the Black Mamba's impact, ahead of the fourth anniversary of the Lakers star's passing.

A wave of tributes poured in online to commemorate the life of the late Kobe Bryant, whose 2020 death shook the sports world.

Bryant ‘really was that loud voice and very prominent voice very early when it maybe wasn’t the trendy, popular thing to do or wasn’t cool to show us love,’ Lunar Owls veteran Skylar Diggins-Smith said.