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Late NBA star Kobe Bryant‘s dad Joe “Jellybean” Bryant died on July 15, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer and La Salle Men’s Basketball. He was 69 years old, the newspaper reported.
ESPN reported that Joe Bryant’s official cause of death was not released. However, he “recently suffered a massive stroke,” La Salle head coach Fran Dunphy told the Inquirer.
Joe Bryant’s death comes four and a half years after his son and granddaughter died in a helicopter crash in 2020. Seven people also died with them in that crash. After his son’s death, Joe Bryant rarely appeared in public, according to ESPN.
La Salle Men’s Basketball Remembered Joe Bryant as a ‘Basketball Great’
La Salle Men’s basketball also confirmed Joe Bryant’s death, calling him a “basketball great” in his own right.
“We are saddened to announce the passing of La Salle basketball great Joe Bryant,” the team wrote on X on July 16. “Joe played for the Explorers from 1973-75 and was a member of our coaching staff from 1993-96. He was a beloved member of the Explorer family and will be dearly missed.”
In his two years with La Salle, Bryant racked up 1,118 points over 55 games, averaging 20.3 points and 11.1 rebounds per game.
La Salle University also remembered Bryant, writing on its X page, “Our deepest condolences to the Bryant family and our La Salle community. May we remember Joe, always.”
According to TMZ, Bryant married wife Pam Cox in 1975, and they had son Kobe three years later. According to Bleacher Report, Joe and Pam Bryant also had two daughters together named Sharia and Shaya, as well as many grandchildren.
Joe Bryant Played in the NBA & Then Built a Coaching Career
The Philadelphia 76ers called Bryant “a local basketball icon” on their X page, writing that his “legacy on the court transcended his journey across Bartram High School, La Salle University, and his first four NBA seasons with the 76ers from 1975-79. Our condolences go out to the Bryant family ❤️💙”
Bryant was a first-round pick by the Golden State Warriors, selected 14th overall in the 1975 NBA draft, but was traded to the 76ers just four months later, according to the Los Angeles Times. He played four seasons ( in Philadelphia, averaging 6.4 points in 14.3 minutes per game. He was traded to the then-San Diego Clippers ahead of the 1979-80 season and saw his playing time nearly double to an average 28.0 minutes per game. He spent his last season with the Houston Rockets, where he averaged 10.0 points in 25.4 minutes across 81 games.
Following his NBA career, Bryant coached basketball for a girls’ high school team, for La Salle University, for the WNBA‘s Los Angeles Sparks team, and then in Japan and Italy, ESPN reported.
In 2010, ESPN quoted Kobe Bryant as saying, “I might be a little biased, but he’s a great basketball mind.”
“He taught me from an early age how to view the game, how to prepare for the game, and how to execute and things like that. I know firsthand what a great teacher he is and I think players that played for him, with the Sparks and things like that, can attest to it as well,” Kobe Bryant told ESPN of his dad.
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