Kobe Bryant of the Los Angeles Lakers announced Sunday that he would retire from professional basketball after the end of this season, his 20th in the N.B.A., bringing to a close one of the most decorated careers in the history of the sport.

Bryant, 37, made his announcement in the form of a short poem titled “Dear Basketball” on The Players’ Tribune, a website founded by the former Yankees shortstop Derek Jeter that publishes first-person narratives from athletes.

In short verses of unadorned language, Bryant recalled falling in love with the game of basketball as a child and growing up as a fan of the Lakers.

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Bryant wrote:

You gave a six-year-old boy his Laker dream

And I’ll always love you for it.

But I can’t love you obsessively for much longer.

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Bryant earlier this month at Madison Square Garden where the Lakers lost to the Knicks, 99-95.Credit…Gregory Fisher/USA Today Sports, via Reuters
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.

Bryant had said on numerous occasions in recent months that this season was likely to be his last one — though he always qualified those statements, saying that he could change his mind.

After playing in just 41 of 164 Lakers games in the previous two seasons because of a succession of injuries, he has looked like a diminished version of himself this season, producing poor numbers in most statistical categories.

In a statement Sunday night, N.B.A. Commissioner Adam Silver called Bryant “one of the greatest players in the history of our game.”

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Silver added, “I join Kobe’s millions of fans around the world in congratulating him on an outstanding N.B.A. career and thank him for so many thrilling memories.”

Bryant was 17 years old when he was picked 13th over all in the 1996 draft by the Charlotte Hornets, who promptly traded him to the Lakers, the only organization for which he has played in his professional career. He has won five N.B.A. titles and two Olympic gold medals, has been named to 17 All-Star teams and was voted the league’s most valuable player in 2008. He ranks third on the N.B.A.’s career scoring list, behind only Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Karl Malone.

For all Bryant’s success, he will leave a somewhat complicated legacy. He will be remembered as one of the best scorers in the history of the game, but he was also known as a difficult and demanding teammate.

In 2003, he was accused of sexual assault in Colorado. He pleaded not guilty, and the charges were eventually dropped.

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Bryant is in the final year of a two-year contract with the Lakers and will earn $25 million in salary, making him the league’s highest-paid player this season.

Even before this formal announcement, Bryant was receiving loud ovations in arenas around the country. In Brooklyn this month, Bryant joked that he preferred the typical hostility of opposing crowds. He said then that he did not want the season to turn into a prolonged, gushing farewell tour.

But Bryant, after a celebrated career, may not have much of a choice.

A version of this article appears in print on Nov. 30, 2015, Section D, Page 6 of the New York edition with the headline: Bryant Announces His Plans to Retire: ‘This Season Is All I Have Left to Give’ . Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe
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