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00:00I'm Jill Painter-Lopez for Sports Illustrated, joined here by Melissa Rowland.
00:07And Melissa, Diana Taurasi very much admired Kobe Bryant, and we saw that when she spoke
00:12at his public memorial.
00:14And the two had an interesting relationship.
00:16Describe that for us.
00:17Well, she grew up in Chino and Kobe was her absolute idol.
00:21She used to practice all of his moves, incorporate them into her own.
00:25She wanted to become him.
00:26She wanted to be a Laker one day.
00:28And throughout the years, obviously, he inspired her in so many ways.
00:32She adopted so many of his moves.
00:34She went on to become a three-time WNBA champion, a two-time finals MVP, and a one-time regular
00:40season MVP.
00:41And it's interesting because actually after Kobe retired in 2016, obviously, he became
00:46a coach for his daughter, Gianna.
00:49And Gianna's dream was to play in the WNBA.
00:52So things kind of came full circle.
00:54We would reach out to Diana and ask her, hey, what moves were you working on when you
00:59were 13 years old?
01:00And he took Gianna to a Mercury practice one day to see how it worked.
01:06So there was definitely a huge amount of mutual respect and mutual admiration there.
01:11And it was really cool because everything kind of came full circle.