Sports Illustrated
Lakers Jeanie Buss Wanted a Bigger Challenge for Gianna Bryant
It's been over a year since the passing of Kobe Bryant and the stories of his impact have been come in a consistent flow. It's safe to say that in the 20 years Kobe spent with the Lakers organization and even in the years after, there were special conversations he had with current Lakers owner, Jeanie Buss.
One such conversation centered around the emerging interests of Gianna Bryant, who was starting to make a name for herself as a top tier basketball talent.
“I had started talking to Kobe because the way (his late daughter) Gianna was devouring basketball, it wasn’t going to be enough for her to be a champion on a college team,” Buss said, via Daniel Kaplan of The Athletic. “She was going to want a bigger challenge. Something that had never been done… What I was talking to Kobe about was like a co-ed team. We’ve got the G League. We’ve got the WNBA, got the NBA. Why not a co-ed league?”
We know Jeanie is quite the entrepreneur and not afraid to start new initiatives such as updated version of women's wrestling otherwise known as GLOW. This endeavor would have been a game changer and an obvious way to help further promote the game of basketball and most importantly, funnel much needed sponsorship dollars to women's basketball.
Leave it to Jeanie and Kobe to have come up with this idea.
