2006 was a memorable year for Kobe Bryant. That season, Bryant dropped 81 points in a regular season game and it was the first time he led the league in scoring (35.4). Though his season ended early in the first round of the playoffs, The Black Mamba celebrated the month of May with the birth of his second daughter, Gianna Bryant.
Today, Kobe is remembered for being one of the pioneering ‘girl dads’ and one of the earliest supporters of the WNBA. His reasoning for the same was touched upon by Derek Fisher recently.
In the season after Gigi’s birth, the Lakers re-signed their three-peat point guard. The defensive specialist was on Byron Scott’s Fast Break talk show when he shared what Kobe Bryant taught him about fatherhood.
Fisher recalled Bryant’s words on how becoming a parent had changed him. “One of the things that I really had to start doing, was I had to ask myself – ‘How is the decision that I make today, going to impact my girls in 2o years?’,” Kobe told Fisher. “I had never heard anybody put it that way,” D-Fish admitted.
Kobe and Vanessa had welcomed Natalia Bryant in 2003, so at the time of this conversation, the two were still young parents. But 28-year-old Kobe, who was one of the biggest superstars in the world, had quickly turned his priorities around following the birth of his daughters.
And much like he did with his career, the Black Mamba approached his family’s future with great foresight and dedication. Derek Fisher explained, “The way he showed up for his girls to coach them in basketball, the way he, you know, supported Gigi, and became one of the first players to like really put the WNBA on…That was all with the idea that, how is this going to impact my girls 20 years from now?”
The relationship Kobe Bryant built with the WNBA was a special one that lives on even after his passing.
Kobe Bryant’s dedication to his daughters fed into his love for the WNBA
Since his early playing days, the Black Mamba was a vocal proponent of the WNBA. He even vouched that the women’s league played “a lot more pure basketball” than the men’s.
As his daughters grew up though, Bryant’s support for the league only increased. He coached and mentored upcoming young talent like Sabrina Ionescu, coached his daughter Gigi’s AAU team and founded the Mamba Sports Academy to share his knowledge of the game.
Before the tragic accident in 2020, all signs pointed toward another Bryant hooping on national television. Gianna had inherited her father’s love for the game and was intent on carrying forward the Black Mamba legacy.
During an appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live, Kobe shared how fans would tell him, “You and [Vanessa] gotta have a boy. Have somebody carry on the tradition, the legacy. And she [Gianna] is like, ‘Oy! I got this! You don’t need no boy for that, I got this.’“
The love Gigi and Kobe Bryant emanated for the game still resonates in the initiatives they set up and the players they inspired. This has led to the WNBA naming an award in their honor, rewarding the staunchest advocates of the women’s league. Heartwarmingly, it was the Bryant family’s uncle, Pau Gasol, who won the Kobe & Gigi Bryant WNBA Advocacy Award in 2023.
