At 13, she was already interested in the largest American universities and franchises in the WNBA, the professional women's championship: Gianna Bryant was to take up on the basketball courts the torch of her father Kobe, alongside whom she died on Sunday in a helicopter accident.
When Los Angeles Lakers supporters asked him if he was sorry he had only girls, Kobe Bryant smiled. The father of Natalia (17), who plays volleyball, Gianna, Bianka (3) and Capri (seven months), sensed that he had found his heiress. "He's someone special" when she plays basketball, explained the five-time NBA champion in 2018 during the famous late night show by Jimmy Kimmel.
Kobe Bryant speaks proudly of his daughter to Jimmy Kimmel. In a separate segment they also talk about him being a helicopter pilot. #KobeBryant and his daughter Gianna died in a helicopter crash this morning. pic.twitter.com/8Ppf8JB9Ys
- Tom Podolec Aviation (@TomPodolec) January 26, 2020"When fans tell me in front of her, you have to have a boy for him to continue the dynasty, she says to me:" I'm taking care of it, don't worry "", he added, very proud. Gianna Bryant, whose first name, like that of her three sisters, sounds Italian, a memory of their father's childhood years in Italy, had become his shadow.
She accompanied him to NBA and WNBA games, improved with him in the gymnasium of their villa and he coached his college team. It is also by going by helicopter to a tournament in which the team, nicknamed the "Mamba Team" in reference to one of the nicknames of Kobe Bryant, had to line up that they died. They were notably accompanied by one of her teammates and her parents.
To believe his father, a model of professionalism and high standards throughout his career in the Lakers jersey from 1996 to 2016, Gianna, whom he affectionately nicknamed Gigi, was, like him, obsessed with basketball. “What I like about Gigi is her curiosity for basketball, she is interested in everything (…) In complex situations during a match, she has this rare ability to analyze what is happening and ask me the good question, "explained the iconic Lakers number 24 to the Los Angeles Times newspaper last October.
"It is a privilege to see her play and to see how she moves on a floor, some of her expressions too (...) It is crazy to see how genetics work", he added. Gianna has even rekindled the passion for basketball for his father, whose end of career was punctuated by serious injuries and sports disillusionment with the Lakers.
"The same personality"
Her career was almost already traced: she wanted to join "at any cost", according to her father, the University of Connecticut, benchmark in American basketball, before trying her luck in WNBA. His father and godfather Rob Pelinka, a former Kobe agent and general manager of the Lakers, had introduced him to stars and coaches in women's basketball.
More than his illustrious surname and ancestry, it was his aptitudes on the parquet floors that had caught the eye, in particular of the coach of the team of LA Sparks, the women's basketball franchise based in Los Angeles. "They have the same way of doing things and the same personality," explained Derek Fisher, former teammate ... from Bryant to the Lakers. She had even inherited a nickname inspired by that of her father's "Black Mamba": for many, she was already "Mambacita", the little Mamba in Spanish.
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