The end of an era is certainly at hand.
Most basketball fanatics in their mid-20s and early 30s grew up idolizing superstars Kobe Bryant, Kevin Garnett, Tim Duncan, Paul Pierce, Dirk Nowitzki and Vince Carter.
Those superstars became the faces of the National Basketball Association starting the late 90s after Michael Jordan retired and passed the torch to them.
But one by one, superstars who began their careers in the 90s are retiring and hanging up their boots as father time inevitably caught up with them.
After Bryant, arguably the greatest player in last decade’s era as well as arguably the best Los Angeles Laker of all-time, recently announced his plan of retiring at the end of this 2015-16 season, many are slowly accepting the fact that a significant era in basketball is slowly ending.
The others are also on borrowed time now as they are also already up there in age just like Bryant, who is now 37 years old.
Except for Bryant, those abovementioned superstars are the ones left from the draft classes in the 90’s.
Garnett, now in his 21st season is the league’s longest tenured player who was drafted in the 1995 class.
Bryant and the semi-retired Ray Allen are the only two cagers left from the very talented 1996 batch.
Even if the time is limited for this set of superstars who carried the NBA for the last two decades, the impact that they made in the world of basketball is still being felt, even among the rising stars, such as Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson of the Golden State Warriors.
And like the sentimental farewell treatment that Bryant is getting now in his final NBA games this season, expect the same thing for his fellow superstars from the 90s as well when they decide to hang up their gloves for good.
The respect and admiration for the superstars that kept the NBA going in its transition period will always be there.
