Sabrina Ionescu Speaks at A Celebration of Life for Kobe and Gianna Bryant

Please welcome the NCAA's all-time leader in points, assists and three-point field goals. Sabrina UNESCO growing up she only knew one way to play basketball fiercely with an obsessive focus. She was absolutely competitive. She wanted to be the best. She even loved the work. when it was difficult, especially if it was difficult, she knew that I was different, that my motivation was different. I grew up watching Kobe Bryant game after game, ring after ring, living his greatness unapologetically. I wanted to be like him, love every part of the competition. be the first one to show up last one to leave love the routine be the best you can be when you don't feel your best and make other people around you be the best version of themselves and wake up and do it again the next day So that It's what I did.

I woke up and got better. I woke up and got better. A year ago, my Oregon team was playing USC the morning of the game, our coaches told us there was a surprise for the day that I thought Nike had sent us. some new shoes or a cleat or something, the game starts and shortly after Kobe walks in with his daughter Gianna and two of his teammates, they sat on the court while I stood there speechless, they watched the whole game and that was the first time I met Kobe Kobe GG and his teammates walked into the locker room after the game, he congratulated us on the win that day in our season up to that point, but said, "I'll never forget it, don't shoot yourselves in the foot." "He wanted to say, don't be satisfied with continuing to work. control what you can the national championship was not far away and our goal was to win it all.

I remember gg excited and smiling in the locker room. I always watched a lot of movies of her playing basketball. She had a better fade than me. I asked her where she wanted to play ball in college and she said that at UConn she had the will and determination to be able to play wherever she wanted and that if she wanted to go there, I wanted her there too. She and her teammates were with us for a while dazzled, then a little shy, but always observing the schools she would choose, it didn't matter if I represented the president of women's soccer.

GG was the future and Kobe knew it, so we decided to build a future together. I worked. Twice with Gigi during the summer he had gone to help Coby's coaching team. Gigi had so many skills from her father that she could tell how many hours they spent in the gym practicing her moves, she smiled all the time, but when it was game. The moment she was ready to kill, her demeanor changed almost instantly when she blew the whistle. I remember one time someone grabbed her shirt and she just knocked him down and then stepped over him.

Coby and I look at each other smiling and he says: No, I don't know where he learned that from. I laughed and said, yeah, you can't teach that and definitely not at his age. Coby was right, she was. I love seeing how hard she worked and how much her teammates loved her, but also hers. desire to be great she always wanted to learn to go to every game she could in college NBA WNBA Kobe was helping was worth it because he saw it in her just as he saw it in me his vision for others is always bigger than what they they imagined for themselves his vision for me was much bigger than mine, more importantly he didn't just show up in my

life

and leave, he stayed, we stayed in touch, always texting, calling, visiting games , I leave a triple-double and receive a text message from him, a novel triple. -double see with the Flex emoji another game another text beast mode or easy money I felt some pressure at the beginning of the season and he wrote to me but he has been good enough and will continue to be good enough, he taught me his step On the way back he told me that if I could bring that to my game, any defender who tried to defend me would be finished.

He told me how high my ark had to be on my shaft. How to tilt my foot. Which leg to kick. How much? the power to drive real sharpness comes effortlessly said he was giving me the blueprint he was giving Gigi the same group and brought us together he did it so that the outsiders who had worked everyone else would feel driven to be a little different every day to make those around them behind and above them a little better every day and they were not the exception, they were the rule. I wanted to be part of the generation that changed basketball for GG and his teammates were being Born a woman did not mean being born behind where greatness was not divided by gender you have a lot to give to say silence that's what he said that's what he believed that's what GG lived through his investment in women's basketball that was his next big act, a girl, dad, basketball, in many ways it was just a metaphor.

I still text them even though he's not here, thank you for everything, the rest is for you, rest easy my boy, the last one I sent him said: I miss you, rest easy. In peace, my dear friend, messages are sent but there is no response. I still feel like he's on the other end of the line. The next time I picked up the phone he would have hit me back. Sometimes I find myself still waiting, it's so strange to describe. gg in the past tense you don't get used to that no one tells you about grief a week after the accident I was in Colorado I had a game and as I do before every game I prayed this time I was thinking about Kobe and gg his voice is still in my head even if his body is not on this earth and all I wanted was a sign that somehow he still heard me - I looked up at the sky and there was a beautiful golden sunset, the boldest yellow.

Yellow Lakers and further in the distance a helicopter was my sign that he will always be with me I heard his voice in my head the last line of one of his books walk until the darkness is a memory and you become the Sun in the next The Today's travelers' horizon can feel like darkness. He was in many ways a radiant sun fixed in the sky. I asked every one of you, every girl, every human being here, with a voice, a platform in a heart, to not let your sunset shine for us, for our sport where you once invested in us with the same passion, drive, respect and love as he did with his own daughter, in the end she was a son who was just beginning to grow and God, she shined, may her light shine forever Coby and Gigi I'll love you forever thank you .