Heartbreaking footage of Kobe Bryant and daughter Gianna at game weeks before helicopter crash deaths
HEARTBREAKING video has emerged of Kobe Bryant with daughter Gianna bonding at an NBA game.
The basketball star and his 13-year-old daughter were both tragically killed in a helicopter crash in California today.
Bryant and Gigi, as she was known, were on their way to the Mamba Academy for basketball practice when the crash took place.
The teen had developed a love for the game that her father excelled at during his 20-year career with the Lakers and the pair had an extra special bond.
A short video clip posted on Twitter today shows father and daughter enjoying a game between the Atlanta Hawks and the Brooklyn Nets.
Bryant, who retired in 2016, said in a recent interview that his daughter reinvigorated his interest in hoops.
“You know what’s funny? So before Gigi got into basketball, I hardly watched it,” he told the “All The Smoke” podcast with Matt Barnes and Stephen Jackson.
“But now that she’s interested into basketball, we watch every night.”
Bryant told Barnes and Jackson that his daughter “likes watching Trae Young a lot, she watched Luka Doncic a lot, she watches James Harden, she watches Russell Westbrook … I mean she watches Bron.”
When asked about what its like coaching his daughter, Bryant told Jimmy Kimmel in 2018 that “we try to teach the kids what excellence looks like.”
“Some of them may want to play in the WNBA, some may not, but we try to give them a foundation of the amount of work and preparation it takes to be excellent in whatever it is you choose to do,” he said.
Bryant added that “we want to focus on the details, we’re going to learn the basics, we’re going to learn the fundamentals, we’re going to do those things over and over.
“And hopefully its something they can apply to other areas of their life.”
He told Kimmel that the “best thing that happens is when we go out and fans come up to me, and she’ll be standing next to me.
“They’ll be like, ‘you gotta have a boy, have somebody carry on the legacy … she’s like oh, I got this.”
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A video clip of Gianna showing Kobe-like moves on the basketball court went viral earlier this month.
She can be seen swishing a fadeaway jumper in a video posted by Slam HS Hoops on Jan. 5.
Gianna was the second oldest of four children of Kobe and Vanessa Bryant.
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