Kobe Bryant Reportedly Had Big Plans for 13-Year-Old Daughter Gianna’s Future

Kobe Bryant and his 13-year-old daughter Gianna were two of nine victims who died in a helicopter crash in California on Sunday, and their loss is being felt immeasurably by fans and those in the basketball community.

While Bryant was an NBA legend, having won five NBA Championships with the Los Angeles Lakers and earned numerous other accolades including the 2008 NBA Most Valuable Player, Gianna was just beginning her journey in the sport, displaying talent inherited from her famous father as well as skills of her own.

Keep reading to read about the big plans the proud dad had for his daughter.

Mambacita

Gianna’s nickname was “Mamabacita,” after her dad’s nickname, Black Mamba, and in December, Bryant had filed to trademark the name for his daughter. According to filed documents obtained by E! News, “Mambacita” was trademarked with the intent of putting it on athletic apparel including shirts, shorts, hats, jerseys, sweatpants and other items.

Coaching

For the past two years, Bryant had been coaching Gianna’s team at the Mamba Sports Academy, the training facility he opened in Thousand Oaks, California after his retirement.

“What I love about Gigi is her curiosity about the game,” he told the Los Angeles Times of his daughter last year. “She’s very curious. Even in a heated situation in a game where it’s going back and forth, she can detach herself and come to me and ask a very specific question, which is not common. She’ll come over and say, ‘OK, on this particular trap when I’m trying to close the gap but she’s getting on the outside, do I need to change my angle?’ It’s a very specific question. That’s pretty damn cool.”

UConn

Gianna was only 13, but she already had a plan for college. In 2018, Bryant was captured having a conversation with NBA Hall of Famer Reggie Miller during which he said that Gianna was “hell-bent” on attending the University of Connecticut.

Her dad encouraged that dream, and he and Gianna attended several of the team’s games together over the years. In 2017, Bryant took his daughter to the UConn locker room, where she got to meet some of the players as well as coach Geno Auriemma. On Monday, the team honored the 13-year-old at their exhibition game by placing a jersey with the number “2” on it on a chair for her.

“Mambacita is forever a Husky,” the team wrote on Twitter.

WNBA

Speaking to Jimmy Kimmel in 2018, Bryant revealed that his daughter was absolutely planning on playing in the WNBA. “She does for sure,” he told the host. 

WNBA star Sue Bird told ESPN that Bryant was “very present in the WNBA.”

“He was going on this journey with his daughter, and I think we could all feel that it was going somewhere special,” she said. “For him as a father, for her as a future basketball player, for them in that father-daughter relationship.”

Kobe’s legacy

Above all, Gianna was preparing to continue her dad’s legacy in the sport of basketball.

“This kid, man,” Bryant told Kimmel. “The best thing that happens is when we go out and fans come up to me, and she’ll be standing next to me and they’ll be like: ‘You’ve got to have a boy. You and [Vanessa] have got to have a boy, someone to carry on the tradition, the legacy.’ And she’s like, ‘Oh, I got this.’”

Photo Credit: Getty / Andrew D. Bernstein