*One of Kobe Bryant ex-coaches, Wayne Slappy, is a good friend of his dad, Joe “Jellybean” Bryant, and according to Slappy, the late NBA legend and his father seemed to be on the path of mending their years-old rift when he was tragically killed.
Slappy told the Daily Mail that he recently witnessed Kobe and his father hugging at a basketball camp in California.
“I just remember being with him up at his camp in Santa Barbara and seeing him hug his dad. You know how they loved each other from how they looked at each other, how they smiled,” Slappy said of the two men.
We previously reported… Kobe and his parents were close growing up and through most of his NBA career, but they had a huge falling out in 2013 after the family tried selling his memorabilia.
Joe and Pam, who were not invited to Kobe’s wedding in 2001, were also not invited to his final NBA game before he retired.
It’s unknown if Kobe and his mother were able to reconcile prior to his tragic death on Sunday.
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Kobe told ESPN in 2016, “Our relationship is s–t. I say, ‘I’m going to buy you a very nice home,’ and the response is, ‘That’s not good enough?’ Then you’re selling my s–t?”
He also explained why he cut his sisters off financially, “They’re very smart, college-educated [women]. I’m really proud of them. They were able to get their own jobs, get their own lives, take care of themselves. Now they have a better sense of self, of who they are as people, instead of being resentful because they were relying on me.”
Slappy says Sunday’s deadly helicopter crash brought a full reconciliation with the Bryant family to a halt.
“Everybody’s family has issues, disagreements here and there. The healing comes, but this healing is going to be hard because he’s not here,” he said.
Slappy noted that the Bryant family is going to miss Kobe “more than you can begin to imagine.”
“Can you imagine a black hole? It’s empty, how do you fill it? They’re a close-knit family. He was 41 years old, and then his daughter dies in an accident with him, too. His family are going to miss him more than you can begin to imagine,” he said.
Slappy learned of Kobe’s death via text message Sunday and said he “just sat in the parking lot at Costco crying for an hour.”
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