Kobe Bryant and his daughter Gianna were among two of the nine people who died in a helicopter crash on Jan. 26 in Calabasas, California. The helicopter was heading to a basketball tournament at Bryant’s Mamba Sports Academy, where Gianna was a member of Team Mamba and Bryant was the head coach. And based on the way they played on Saturday, it looked they had a chance to win the tournament.
The New York Times took a look at Bryant’s team in their final tournament, which was called the Mamba Cup. It lasted two days and it featured boys and girls, ages 9 to 14. The teams came from all over California as well as several other states, but Team Mamba was considered a team to watch. Along with Gianna, Team Mamba also had Mackenly Rudolph, who is the daughter of former NBA star Zach Randolph.
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“The Mambas were formidable, not unbeatable,” John Branch of the New York Times wrote. “They lost their first game, 46 to 29, to a team from Texas.”
The Mambas did win their next game by a score of 35 to 29. Gianna along with the two teammates who would ride in the helicopter with her the next day — Payton Chester and Alyssa Altobelli — would combine for 17 points in the win.
Between games, fans were chanting Bryant’s name and one 13-year old boy tried to get a selfie with him.
“I was up, and I saw his car pull up right over here, and I was like, ‘Kobe could I get a quick picture with a couple of my friends,’” Brady Smigiel said to CBS Los Angeles after Team Mamba’s second game. “And he was like, ‘I’ll get you tomorrow. You play here?’ And I was like, ‘Yeah,’ and then he just walked out. I got that blurry picture, and then he walked out and got in the car.”
Brady was able to get a couple of pictures of him with Bryant walking away. And once he heard the news of the helicopter crash, he said he will keep the photos forever.
“I’m keeping those forever as long as I can,” he said. “I’m showing them to all my friends and family, so if anything happened to my phone or my family’s phones, I have it somewhere. It’s just so special to me.”
