Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant have gone down as all-time greats and they were also great friends. A wonderful bond had formed between them over the years and on Bryant’s fifth death anniversary, the final text exchange between them went viral once again, and it still hits you hard.
“This tequila is awesome,” Kobe texted, referring to Jordan’s Cincoro Tequila, a bottle of which was sent to Bryant at the launch.
“Thank you, my brother,” Jordan responded.
“Yes, sir. Family good?” Kobe replied.
“All good. Yours?”
“All good.”
Jordan smiled, then decided to have a little fun. “He was really into coaching Gigi,” MJ explains, “so I hit him up about that.”
“Happy holidays,” Jordan texted back, “and hope to catch up soon. Coach Kobe??!”
“I added that little crying/laughing emoji,” Jordan chuckles.
“Ah, back at you, man,” Kobe wrote. “Hey, coach, I’m sitting on the bench right now, and we’re blowing this team out. 45-8.”
Those messages just sum up Bryant at that point. He was loving life coaching his daughter Gianna’s basketball team but both of them wouldn’t be alive for much longer.
This text exchange took place on Dec. 8, 2019, and 49 days later on Jan. 26, 2020, Kobe and Gianna tragically passed away in a helicopter accident. The two were traveling for a basketball game at the Mamba Sports Academy in Thousand Oaks when they and seven others lost their lives.
His good friend’s passing understandably shook Jordan. He was given the opportunity to speak at a memorial service held for Bryant at what was then called Staples Center on Feb. 24, 2020, and delivered an incredible speech.
Jordan struggled to hold back the tears there, which shows how strong the bond was. He was also later given the honor of inducting Bryant into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 2021.
It was prior to that ceremony that Jordan revealed what his final text exchange with Bryant was, to ESPN’s Jackie MacMullan. He also admitted at the time that despite his friend passing away more than a year ago, he has been unable to delete the number or the final text.
“I don’t know why,” he says, “but I just can’t delete it.”
That was heartbreaking. You can understand Jordan wanting to hold on to them as a means to remember Bryant. He couldn’t have imagined he would have loved Kobe this much, though, when they first crossed paths. Jordan once explained how his relationship with Bryant grew.
“At first he was an irritant. But then secondly it became, it’s a sense of respect. I respect him for that. To me, I’d probably do the same thing.”
It was a sign of respect that Bryant modeled his game after Jordan’s. He wanted to be like him in every sense and ended up being the closest thing we have seen to “His Airness.”
Bryant may not have turned out to be as great of a player as Jordan but he still had a pretty remarkable career. He won five NBA titles, two Finals MVPs, an MVP, and two scoring titles in his 20 seasons with the Los Angeles Lakers.
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