When Joe Bryant left the NBA to play in Europe, it was a big transition. Particularly for his then-6-year-old son, Kobe Bryant. However, like the greats often do, Kobe adapted to his surroundings and started hooping for the junior teams where his father played. It was then that WNBA legend Cynthia Cooper first heard about the young American.
Cooper is one of 27 female players to be inducted into the Naismith Memorial Hall of Fame. She is considered by many to be one of the greatest WNBA players of all time. Before the WNBA was established, Cooper played for the Italian club, Parma, around the same time that the Bryant family was in the country.
Though she never formally met the family or young Kobe Bryant, the two would unite later in the United States. Cooper was on Mark Jackson’s podcast when she recalled an interaction she shared with the Black Mamba.
“I remember one of the All-Star games, we’re just sitting there half court. We’re looking both ends, we’re just speaking Italian to everybody- er, to each other,” the 61-year-old shared.
There’s an image of Cooper, with her son Bryan Jr. on her hip, lovingly talking to the young Mamba at the 2004 All-Star Game. That’s likely when this conversation happened. Over a decade after Kobe had left Italy. Yet, as Cooper recalls, the two legends could speak fluently with each other. And of course, since this is Kobe, they weren’t just talking in Italian, they were trash-talking.
“And we’re actually talking about the players. Kobe’s like, ‘Yo, ain’t none of these players better than me.’ And I’m like, I’m looking around but then I realize we’re speaking in Italian, nobody understands us,” she quipped.
Cooper added that both she and Bryant would take whatever opportunities they got to practice their Italian. It wasn’t the only thing they had in common though. Mark Jackson would add during the segment that Cooper always had that Mamba Mentality too.
Jackson explained the similarity: “You’d walk in the gym and say, ‘Ok, who’s gonna be starting opposite me?’ Or ‘Who wants me to give them the business today?’…You wanted to impose your will as a competitor.”
Cooper’s response to that only affirmed how she and Kobe thought alike. “I wanted to be great and you can’t be great if you’re not willing to compete against the best…That Mamba Mentality is you never arrive. You always get better,” she added.
That’s exactly why she won the first two WNBA MVPs and the first four WNBA championships. To this day, Cooper holds the record for most Finals MVPs won by a WNBA player (4). It’s the competitive nature and winning mentality that made her and the late Kobe Bryant such great friends.
