Kobe Bryant Retiring After This Season with LA Lakers: "It's Time to Say Goodbye"

Kobe Bryant will be hanging up his basketball career after this season! MStars News has learned that the NBA great is retiring from the LA Lakers in 2016. According to ESPN, the five-time NBA champ announced that he will end his 20-year career over the weekend. He wrote on The Players' Tribune website, "It's time to say goodbye," in a poem called Dear Basketball.

Bryant spent his entire NBA career with the Los Angeles Lakers and said that it was his dream to play basketball since he was six years old. "As a six-year-old boy, deeply in love with you, I never saw the end of the tunnel. I only saw myself, running out of one. And so I ran," he said.

A photo posted by Kobe Bryant (@kobebryant) on Aug 22, 2015 at 1:59pm PDT

"But I can't love you obsessively for much longer," the 37-year-old added. "This season is all I have left to give. My heart can take the pounding. My mind can handle the grind but my body knows it's time to say goodbye. And that's OK. I'm ready to let you go."

The Lakers lost their game on Sunday against the Indiana Pacers. Bryant told the press that he had made his decision to retire "a while" ago.

"I've known for a while," Bryant explained. "A decision like this, you can't make that decision based on outside circumstances; it has to be an internal decision, and finally I've decided to accept that I can't actually do this anymore, and I'm OK with that." The father of two girls said, "It takes a weight off my shoulders and everybody else's."

Lakers coach Byron Scott said that Bryant's "purpose is to finish out this season and play." The coach added, "I think he still loves this game. He still has a passion for it. He's still a competitive young man."

MStars News wants to know: How do you feel about Bryant's retirement? Do you feel like it's about time or do you feel like he still has a lot left in him playing with the younger guys in the NBA?