{"id":126673,"date":"2025-08-07T15:35:09","date_gmt":"2025-08-07T15:35:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/126673\/"},"modified":"2025-08-07T15:35:09","modified_gmt":"2025-08-07T15:35:09","slug":"wnba-hall-of-famer-reveals-she-was-going-to-coach-kobe-bryants-daughter-gigis-team","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/126673\/","title":{"rendered":"WNBA Hall of Famer Reveals She Was Going to Coach Kobe Bryant’s Daughter Gigi’s Team"},"content":{"rendered":"

There are certain terrible moments that leave an indelible mark on the world. They\u2019re the kinds of moments where you remember exactly where you were, who you were with, and what you were doing. For instance, the tragic death of Kobe Bryant, his daughter Gigi, and everybody aboard their ill-fated helicopter on January 26, 2020 had everybody reeling.<\/p>\n

It seems everybody in the basketball world has at least a few Kobe stories, because he was such a legendary figure who was nonetheless so generous with his time. Kobe left the kind of lasting impact that went well beyond the basketball court.<\/p>\n

For Nancy Lieberman, herself a basketball icon, the story of Kobe\u2019s death is an especially personal one. On the Big3\u00a03s and Ones podcast that premiered yesterday, she explained why.<\/p>\n

As Lieberman told Michael Beasley and Chris Haynes, she had been going back and forth with Kobe for a long time about coaching his daughter Gigi\u2019s team. Busy schedules got in the way, but finally they locked down a place and time to do it. Unfortunately, this resulted in a terrible scare for her son TJ.<\/p>\n

\u201cI told TJ Saturday morning, I said, \u2018Hey I\u2019m going out, I have to do something in California. I\u2019m gonna coach Gigi\u2019s team.\u2019 I didn\u2019t tell him when.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m at this conference Sunday morning, and it\u2019s early. TJ\u2019s blowing up my phone. I grab my purse, I run out the back door, and I\u2019m like, \u2018TJ I\u2019m at a conference.’\u201d That\u2019s when she got the news from her son that Kobe had died.<\/p>\n

Like so many, Lieberman was in disbelief<\/a> at the news.\u00a0\u201cI go, \u2018No he didn\u2019t, he just called me last night. I\u2019m going out there Wednesday.\u2019 He goes, \u2018Mom, Kobe died. His helicopter crashed, and basically I thought you were on it.\u2019 I just about hit the floor and I heard a Secret Service guy grab me, and they took me in a back room.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI didn\u2019t know if I was gonna have a heart attack,\u201d she continued.\u00a0\u201cI couldn\u2019t breathe. It was too close.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lieberman went on to tell a story of how Kobe helped her when she was an assistant coach with the Sacramento Kings. A young employee didn\u2019t know any better, and so he wouldn\u2019t let her into the locker room. Kobe took him aside and set him straight, using it as a teaching moment about the dangers of profiling and stereotyping.<\/p>\n

\u201cKobe saved the day,\u201d Lieberman said.\u00a0\u201cSo many times he was there for me. He would pick up the phone, he\u2019d check on TJ. He was really special. People thought he was \u2018Mamba\u2019 on the court, he was as much a Mamba of love off the court.\u201d<\/p>\n

Basketball was how the world came to know Kobe, and there are still countless stories of the incredible things he could do on the court. Who he was off it has endured even more though.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There are certain terrible moments that leave an indelible mark on the world. They\u2019re the kinds of moments…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":126674,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[62,67,132,68,232],"class_list":{"0":"post-126673","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wnba","8":"tag-sports","9":"tag-united-states","10":"tag-unitedstates","11":"tag-us","12":"tag-wnba"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114988222068703884","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/126673","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=126673"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/126673\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/126674"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=126673"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=126673"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=126673"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}