Gianna Bryant: Basketball talent killed alongside father
The 13-year-old daughter of Kobe Bryant was among nine people who were killed in a helicopter crash in California.
Like her father, Gianna Bryant was a prodigiously talented basketball player. She also held ambitions of becoming a professional.
Her death on Sunday means that aspiration will never be realised.
Bryant and Gianna were travelling in a private helicopter when it came down in the city of Calabasas, west of Los Angeles.
The pair was expected to take part in a basketball tournament for young players at the Mamba Sports Academy in Thousand Oaks on Sunday, US media report.
Gianna was playing, Bryant was coaching.
Attending basketball games together was typical of their relationship, which was said to be close.
The second of Bryant’s four daughters, Gianna dreamed of continuing her dad’s legacy. In an interview, Bryant had said his daughter was determined to play for the University of Connecticut women’s basketball team.
The team shared an image of the two on its Twitter page.
Bryant said that, following his retirement from basketball in 2016, he switched off from the sport.
His daughter, however, rekindled his passion for the game.
“It wasn’t me sitting there, you know as an athlete or a player or something like that, and you know it’s like about me, and I don’t like that. It was her, she was having such a good time,” Bryant told the BET network in a recent interview.
Bryant’s affection for his daughter, also known as Gigi, is obvious from his social media profiles. One video posted to his Instagram shows him playing “one-on-one with my baby Gigi”.
@wnba finals rematch got us hype! A lil one on one with my baby Gigi #footwork #stringmusic #mambacita
A post shared by Kobe Bryant (@kobebryant) on
End of Instagram post by kobebryant
The former LA Lakers star, 41, said he had been coaching Gianna’s middle school team since his retirement.
A clip which appears to show Bryant imparting advice about basketball went viral a few weeks ago.
NBA commissioner Adam Silver said Bryant took “special delight in passing down his love of the game to Gianna”.
Speaking to talk show host Jimmy Kimmel, Bryant, a five-time NBA champion, talked about his wish for his daughter to follow in his footsteps.
“The best thing that happens is when we go out and fans would come up to me and she’ll be standing next to me, and they’ll be like, ‘You’ve gotta have a boy, you and V gotta have a boy. You gotta have somebody to carry on your tradition, the legacy.
“She’s like, ‘I got this’,” Bryant said. “I’m like, ‘that’s right’. Yes, you do, you got this.”
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