Unfortunately, a big part of the legacy of Kobe is his problematic cult of personality. That rape case served as a road map to all of the obstacles women face leading into the #metoo movement, and, for better or worse, discussing it as part of his legacy will always be important because it's a window into his personality. A friend of mine worked security for Kobe for a short time and had stories about how arrogant, stand-offish, and seemingly unfeeling he could be to people he didn't know; that's a huge disconnect from the image that Kobe presented to fellow elite athletes and to the public in general of a motivator. The man that the Colorado victim talked about in the bits and pieces we got is very much the former rather than the latter, but the cult he built up through a carefully built media presence tended to disguise this about him.
Ultimately, that means a big part of the shock of losing him should be the fact that it is, in part, a reaction to the Kobe everyone thinks of is not authentic and we may never know the man he really was both on the court and in that hotel room.