During Kobe Bryant’s playing days, it was difficult for most people to see anything other than a highly-trained basketball machine. Kobe was a killer on the court who would stop at nothing to be the best, and his career is proof of how hard he worked. Kobe won five rings, two of which came after his infamous split with Shaquille O’Neal. Over his 20-year career, he etched himself into NBA lore with his Mamba Mentality and relentless pursuit of greatness.
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Later in Kobe’s career, and certainly after he retired, we began to see other sides to his personality. Kobe made being a “girl dad” cool as he and his wife Vanessa proudly raised four girls — Natalia, Gianna, Bianka and Capri. He coached their basketball teams and seemed to cherish every aspect of his family life.
Kid Jay got to see that side of Kobe up close. Real name Jason Wagers, the former Lakers locker room attendant and current cohost of Byron Scott’s Fast Break told a story on this week’s episode about how a simple request from the two-time Finals MVP led to a lifelong friendship.
“Kobe knew I was a DJ,” he said. “He knew I was doing all kinds of stuff as an MC and a turntablist, and he’s like, ‘Jay, come to the house, I want you to DJ for my daughter’s birthday party.’ So over the years, I just DJ’ed all these parties at the house, and one thing I found out was his [two oldest] daughters were the same age as my son and daughter.”
Having that bond led to even bigger and better things. “Every single summer we would do a Wagers-Bryant trip,” Jay said. “We always went somewhere. One of my fondest memories is SeaWorld. Both families went to SeaWorld together, and we got to go behind the scenes and see all the different enclosures and whatnot.”
“There’s a photo of me holding my daughter on my shoulders, and I wanna say she was about five at the time … and Kobe is carrying Gigi. And there’s a picture of us, and it means so much to me and my family.”
Later in life, Jay and his daughter went back to SeaWorld and tried to recreate that photo in the same spot because it was such an important memory. “It’s just something special, and it means so so much, the family side of Kobe that people don’t really get to see.”
Kobe’s love for his family has been memorialized all over the world since his and Gigi’s untimely death. According to the Kobemural Instagram account, there are 630 public murals of Kobe and Gigi in 45 countries worldwide. More than half of those are in Southern California.
Perhaps no basketball player lives on through storytelling more than Kobe, and as Kid Jay’s story illustrated, his legacy is about much more than basketball.
