ATLANTA — Kobe Bryant knew it and made it clear in a story he told Jimmy Kimmel: he didn't need a son to carry on his legacy. He had daughters already up to the challenge.
In October 2018, the basketball great set down with Kimmel to talk about life and coaching his daughter's basketball team.
But it was his and his daughter's response to a fan that is now being remembered in their death. Kobe and his daughter Gianna "Gigi" Bryant were on a flight along with seven other people when it came down on Sunday evening.
She was already planning to play in the WNBA, he said, taking to the court just like her dad.
"The best thing that happens is when we go out and fans will come up to me and she'll be standing next to me and they'll be like, 'Man, you gotta have a boy, you and V gotta have a boy, man, have somebody to carry on your tradition - the legacy'," he said. "She's like, 'Oi, I got this. Don't need no boy for that, I got this.'"
His answer to that?
"That's right, yes you do, you got this," he said.
Just a little less than a year later in September 2019, he came back on the set and spoke again about his family and his four daughters - one just two months old at the time. He summed up his feelings in that interview.
"You know, like, I love having girls," he said. "Like, I love it, they're awesome, man."
In both interviews, Kobe's main focus was his family - one he clearly wouldn't have had any other way.
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