Where #8 came from
Kobe wore #8 his rookie year in 1996 because he couldn’t have his high school number, #33 — that was already retired by the Lakers for Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. The #8 came from his Adidas ABCD summer-camp days as a 17-year-old, where he was assigned the number 143. Adding the digits gives 8. Kobe stuck with it through the championship three-peat from 2000 to 2002 and the post-Shaq years.
The #8 era was the high-flying, score-first, sometimes adversarial Kobe — the player who scored 81 points against Toronto on January 22, 2006 (still wearing 8), feuded with O’Neal, and was widely seen as the league’s most polarizing star.
The 2006 switch
Bryant announced the change to #24 in May 2006. The reasoning he gave at the time and refined later: 24 hours in a day spent working, one more than Jordan, the next stage. He had also worn #24 at Lower Merion High as a freshman before switching to #33. By 2006 the Lakers were rebuilding around him alone — Phil Jackson had returned, Pau Gasol would arrive in 2008 — and Kobe wanted the visual reset.
The switch coincided with the most-prolific stretch of his career on a per-game basis. Wearing #24 he won two more titles (2009 and 2010), the 2008 MVP, and made another All-NBA First Team in 2013. He wore #24 longer (10 seasons) than #8 (10 seasons), which is part of why the Lakers couldn’t pick one for retirement.
December 18, 2017 — both numbers go to the rafters
The Lakers retired both jerseys at halftime of a Lakers–Warriors game on December 18, 2017 at Staples Center. Kobe spoke from center court flanked by Magic Johnson and Jeanie Buss; the banners with #8 and #24 unrolled simultaneously from the rafters. He’s the only player in NBA history with two retired numbers by a single franchise.
After Kobe’s death in January 2020, the Lakers wore commemorative patches with both numbers stitched together for the rest of that season — and the team’s Black Mamba alternate uniform, designed by Kobe and Nike together in 2018, became the de facto jersey worn during their 2020 championship run.
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Wayne Gretzky 99: The Story Behind the Number Why Did Michael Jordan Wear 23? Why LeBron James Wears 23 (and Briefly Wore 6)Background facts cross-referenced with the Wikipedia article on Kobe Bryant and Pro-Football-Reference / Basketball-Reference public records. Lead image via Wikimedia Commons (Public domain).