At Unrivaled, Kobe Bryant’s impact looms large ahead of the fifth anniversary of his passing
It’s no secret that Kobe Bryant became a huge advocate for women’s sports during the later stage of his life.
His support seems almost prophetic considering the current renaissance of women’s hoops. Bryant, after all, emerged as one of basketball’s global ambassadors in the mid-aughts; what he said, for lack of a better term, went as far as the sport was concerned.
So it was only right that at Unrivaled, the new, revolutionary 3-on-3 women’s basketball league, Bryant’s influence loomed larger ahead of the five year anniversary of his death.
Bryant “really was that loud voice and very prominent voice very early when it maybe wasn’t the trendy, popular thing to do or wasn’t cool to show us love,” Lunar Owls veteran Skylar Diggins-Smith said, later adding that “his legacy, how he competed – his fingerprints are all over our game today.”
The impact can be seen everywhere. In Mist veteran Jewel Lloyd’s “Gold Mamba” nickname. In Vinyl star Arike Ogunbowale’s choice of jersey number – 24, of course – and Grinch Kobe 6s. Even in Unrivaled co-founder Breanna Stewart’s play post-Achilles injury.
“He was like, ‘Hey, this is Kobe. I just wanted to reach out to you and let you know if you need anything, I’m here,’” Stewart told Sports Illustrated in 2020. At the time of the text, Stewart had recently torn her Achilles, an injury that nearly ended Bryant’s career. The two would bond over their common recovery processes with Stewart even going to the same doctor as Bryant. “It was a weird time. I wasn’t in the greatest of moods, but I appreciated that. The thing with the Achilles is it stays with you forever. So now, I’m invested in every person I come across who has an Achilles injury. I think he’s the same. He wants to help people. He reached out to me.”
At the mere mention of Bryant, player began to grin, tossing around buzz words like Mamba Mentality, the way in which the five-time NBA champion described his intense mindset, as well as his love for women’s sports.
“That was my favorite player growing up so he had a huge impact on my game,” the Mist’s NaLyssa Smith said of Bryant. “I’ve always been a Lakers/ Kobe fan. Just his mindset, his integrity — that’s something all basketball players should keep in their mind.”
“He was really a person that saw us women as the talents we are,” Satou Sabally of the Phantom said. “He came to the games. He was so outspoken and he was really supportive so that automatically means a lot.”
Dearica Hamby’s first interaction with Bryant actually came at one of her games. A then-member of the Las Vegas Aces, Hamby would always notice when the Los Angeles Lakers superstar was in attendance. One day, Bryant paid Hamby a compliment that she never forgot.
“One of the first things he told me was I can play defense,” Hamby recalled with a slight chuckle. “I was like ‘Whaaaat.’”
To hear that from Bryant, a 12-time All-Defensive Team selection, was incredible.
“If Kobe Bryant says you can play defense, you can play defense,” Hamby quipped.
Bryant and his 13-year-old daughter Gianna, affectionally known as Gigi, were on their way to a youth basketball game in Thousand Oaks, Calif. when their helicopter crashed, killing both of them as well as seven other passengers. It was a moment that’s very clearly etched into the psyche of hoops fans across the world.
“Every time I think about that day when he passed it really makes me emotional because I think about my time in Oregon and how we all bonded together over Kobe,” said Sabally, who was a senior at the University of Oregon at the time.
After his death, however, Bryant’s commitment to women’s sports has become enduring legacies. That’s in large part due to Gigi whom the five-time NBA champion deemed his second-coming.
Gianna is “pretty fierce,” Bryant told Extra in July 2017. “She loves playing, she loves shooting. She came to me last summer and asked if I would teach her the game a little bit, so she really just started playing, but she picked up things innately.”
Although the anniversary of his death brought about a very somber response, it was difficult not to imagine Bryant and Gigi both courtside, sharing a laugh as they so commonly would. Diggins-Smith, for one, knows just how much Bryant would’ve loved Unrivaled.
“I think he would’ve been down here watching a few of these games and really had loved the competition,” Diggins-Smith said.
Added Sabally: “I know that he’s looking down and, hopefully, he’s smiling and is proud of us.”
This story was originally published January 26, 2025 at 6:00 AM.
