The news of the death of Kobe Bryant shook the basketball world on January 26, 2020. No one could believe that one of the greatest legends in NBA history had died in a helicopter crash. The news got even worse when it became known that his daughter Gianna accompanied him on the device. His loss, beyond the human and personal tragedy, was also devastating in basketball terms; the world had run out of a future star.
Gianna, commonly known as Gigi, was the second daughter of Kobe and Vanessa Bryant’s marriage. Of her four sisters, she was the one who put the most effort into looking like her father and adopting basketball as a lifestyle. Gigi was just 13 years old when she died when the helicopter in which she was traveling with Kobe crashed a year ago today and both were heading to a meeting of the Mamba Ballers, team of the Mamba Academy where he played she.
Gianna Bryant aspired to play in the WNBA one day.
The Mamba Sports Academy was one of the projects that Kobe was most fond of after his retirement. Launched in 2008, the initiative wanted to bring team sport closer to all boys and girls, with special attention to future generations of women’s basketball. Gigi embodied that yearning for basketball stardom better than anyone, dreaming of one day playing in the WNBA.
Gianna competed at a very high level for her age, trained by her father with whom she had a very close relationship. The cliché that a father does not play favorites is just that, an easy joke. However, Kobe and Gigi were united with the same passion and that made them spend a lot of time together, enjoying the sport they both adored.
Gianna’s dream was to play her college years at the University of Connecticut, one of the great American basketball programs. After, the next step would take her to the WNBA, The best league of the world. Kobe and Gianna were often seen by the pavilions across the country, being luxury spectators of the best women’s and men’s basketball. The images of both two sitting in the front row they went around the world after his death.
Kobe liked to say that he was not a typical father, but a “girl dad”, A father of girls. With four daughters, Bryant confessed on more than one occasion that Gianna was a younger and more feminine version of himself and that every time he looked at her, he reflected on her. This particularity made him approach, once retired, another former NBA player as Zach Randolph. They both had something in common and that is his daughters were teammates.
Kobe Bryant and his daughter Gianna at a UConn game.
Zach and Kobe developed a beautiful friendship in recent years and they both shared their love for their daughters and the dream that one day they could enjoy themselves to the fullest extent, as they did. Randolph recalls being amazed by Kobe’s incredible ability to train: “one of the best I ever saw, and I don’t mean the Kobe player but how he managed and trained the girls”.
However, if there is anyone whom Kobe and Gigi’s death hit hard it was to Pau Gasol. “He is my brother … and he will always be my brother”, Bryant liked to say about Spanish. The two forged a precious friendship during Pau’s time at the Lakers and the center always made Kobe’s family his own. “Uncle Pau”, As Gigi liked to call him, he often visited Bryant’s daughters, to play with them and spend time whenever he could. The affection between the two went far beyond the court and lasts to this day, one year after his death.
Even after the death of both, Pau Gasol has continued to be a part of Bryant’s life. She sent Vanessa a bouquet of flowers for her wedding anniversary, a cake for Gigi’s birthday, and spent as much time as she could with her daughters during a really difficult year. In summer, when it was he who became a father, he did not hesitate to name his daughter: Elizabeth gianna gasol.
The stamp of Kobe and Gianna at the foot of the court became common in recent years.
The world left us without Mambacita, as Kobe liked to call her and how many knew her in the world of basketball. The little girl aspired to collect the legacy of the Angelina legend and forge her own. Bryant always said that Gigi was a model of professionalism and demand, an improved copy of his own figure. In fact, she had rekindled the flame of enthusiasm for basketball in Kobe after a few unsatisfactory years and retirement.
Pau Gasol was able to perfectly sum up what the loss of Kobe and Gianna meant for many fans. “He is someone that I will miss for the rest of my life and, at the same time, someone that I will keep in mind in everything I do and every step I take.”Declared the Spaniard. Today, a year after his death, the world continues to cry the goodbye of one legend and the seed of another.