She grew up in Chino, California, as a die-hard Lakers fan. For him as a father, for her as a future basketball player, for them in that father-daughter relationship."įor guard Diana Taurasi - who won two NCAA titles at UConn, three WNBA championships with the Phoenix Mercury and four Olympic gold medals - Bryant was a longtime inspiration. He was going on this journey with his daughter, and I think we could all feel that it was going somewhere special.
I know he's taken his whole family to Megan's soccer games. "He wanted her to meet Megan, to meet me. "He just really wanted to expose Gigi to as much greatness as he could," Bird said. They got a chance to chat with Bryant and Gigi while watching many of the best women's basketball players in the world. soccer star Megan Rapinoe - was sidelined with a knee injury. The four-time Olympic gold medalist - at the game with girlfriend and U.S. Seattle Storm guard Sue Bird sat next to Bryant and Gigi at the WNBA All-Star Game last July in Las Vegas. "He took it upon himself to make a difference," she said, "and show Gigi and those other girls what they could do as basketball players." That weighed on Samuelson, who recalled how committed he was to his daughter's future. Now Bryant and Gigi won't have that opportunity. "He said he had to get that moment, because he knew he'd be a wreck if it was him." "He recorded me walking out with my dad," Samuelson said. Samuelson said Bryant sent her a text after that game. Gigi had become a big fan of 11-time national champion UConn, and she went to Huskies games with her father, including UConn's senior day in 2019 for Samuelson and Napheesa Collier. Los Angeles Sparks forward Nneka Ogwumike, the 2016 MVP and WNBA champion, said Gigi was "symbolic of his legacy, and also the future of women's basketball." Obviously, Gigi - everybody saw how she was kind of taking after Kobe with her play." "But you can't help but think about those kids that were on that helicopter. "We lost a legend in Kobe," said Breanna Stewart, an Olympic gold medalist, four-time NCAA champion at UConn and 2018 WNBA MVP. He was especially proud of how Gigi would ask specific, detailed questions about strategy, and how her skills kept improving. In interviews with the likes of Jimmy Kimmel and in social media posts, Bryant regularly commented on his daughter's competitive nature, love for basketball and mind for the game. "He's a basketball savant, and he's been like that since he was 16 years old. This little girl who's looking up to these players like they're superhuman, and you've got my players looking to her dad like, 'Oh my god.'. "Our kids were fascinated by her, and obviously for a little girl to be in the company of those players, I can't put myself in her shoes, but it must have been an unbelievable thrill. Auriemma recalled when Bryant and his daughter attended a UConn-UCLA game in Los Angeles, sitting behind the Huskies' bench. "Gigi started to show a tremendous interest in the game," UConn coach Geno Auriemma told ESPN's Holly Rowe before Monday's game. Gigi was just 13, and we'll never know if she would have developed into a top-level Division I player, or gone on to the WNBA.
Gigi Bryant had become something of a celebrity as a young player, thanks to the adoration and devotion of her famous father. In the aftermath of the deaths of Bryant, Gianna (Gigi) and seven others, including two of Gigi's fellow young basketball players, Alyssa Altobelli and Payton Chester, in a helicopter accident Sunday in Los Angeles, these current women's basketball stars couldn't let go of this: what those young girls with big dreams won't get to do. Samuelson and her fellow WNBA players are grieving many losses. They were beautiful girls, beautiful people. But fast-forward to see them, and the growth they had made just in that year. "They were all kind of goofy, a little bit. So I saw them going into my senior year ," she said. "Kobe let me coach one of their practices.
national team set to face her alma mater, UConn, that same night in an exhibition game, her eyes filled with tears. So, as she stood in a quiet XL Center, with the U.S. In getting to know the basketball star and his second-oldest daughter, Gianna, Samuelson once helped with Bryant's Mamba Sports Academy girls' basketball program. Having grown up in Huntington Beach, California, when Kobe Bryant and the Los Angeles Lakers' dominated in the NBA, she understood what Bryant means to the City of Angels. Chicago Sky guard Katie Lou Samuelson couldn't hold back her emotions Monday. 'She was the future' - WNBA stars saw themselves in Kobe Bryant's daughter Gigi
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