Everything Kobe Bryant Said About Gianna Bryant, & Her Love For Basketball

To remember the lives of Kobe Bryant and his daughter Gianna, let’s take a look at every time Kobe told us about her love for basketball.

Source: Allen Berezovsky / Getty

Today marks two years since Kobe Bryant and his Daughter Gigi both lost their lives in a helicopter crash just outside of Calabasas, California.

Since that fateful day, it still doesn’t seem real. How could someone like Kobe–who gave his entire life to the game of basketball before finally letting it go to be a family man–have that all cut short right when the next chapter in his life started? Day after day, you see or hear some mention of Kobe, it’s almost like we collectively refuse to believe he is gone. Gianna was the chosen one, the one to carry the legacy of Kobe’s larger-than-life basketball persona which is something he talked about any chance he got.

“[Gianna]’s pretty fierce. She loves playing, she loves shooting. She came to me last summer and asked if I would teach her the game a little bit, so she really just started playing, but she picked up things innately.” -Kobe on Extra (2017)

“What I love about Gigi is her curiosity about the game. 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.” Kobe to the L.A. Times

“[Gianna] will be standing next to me, and [fans] will be like, ‘You gotta have a boy. You and [wife Vanessa] gotta have a boy, you gotta have somebody carry on the tradition, the legacy.’ And she’s like, ‘Oh! I got this. Don’t need no boy for that! I got this.'” – Kobe on Jimmy Kimmel Live! (2018)