By Victor Mather
Joe Bryant, a college basketball standout, an NBA player for eight seasons and the father of basketball star Kobe Bryant, died on Tuesday. He was 69.
His death was confirmed by the athletic department at La Salle University in Philadelphia, where he played college basketball. It did not say where he died or give the cause of death.
Bryant, a 6-foot-9 forward who was known as Jellybean because he enjoyed that candy, averaged 19 and 22 points a game in two seasons at La Salle before he was chosen 14th overall in the 1975 NBA draft by the Golden State Warriors.
But he and the Warriors could not agree on a salary, so before his career began the Warriors traded him to the Philadelphia 76ers.
In Philadelphia, he struggled for a starting spot and failed to match the kind of point totals he had in college. In his rookie season, he was charged with possession of cocaine after a high-speed chase with the police. But he was acquitted after a judge ruled that police had searched his car illegally.
Bryant spent four seasons as a backup in Philadelphia before having stretches with the San Diego Clippers and the Houston Rockets. After the 1983 season, he left the league and found greater success playing in Italy, where his son, Kobe, spent part of his childhood.
Italy suited him. There were fewer games each season and more time off. “I’ve become a family man,” he said. “In the United States, I was more of a traveling man.”
In European ball he averaged 30 points or more a game, far above his 8.7 average in the NBA.
He went on to a coaching career for several teams in Asia as well as with the Los Angeles Sparks of the WNBA.
Joseph Washington Bryant was born on Oct. 19, 1954, in Philadelphia. He attended Bartram High School. He married Pamela Cox in 1975, and they had Kobe in 1978, along with two daughters, Sharia and Shaya.
The family moved back to the Philadelphia area after his playing career ended. Kobe was such a good high school player there that he was coveted by NBA teams by the time he had graduated.
“Kobe’s going to make the decision to do what he wants to do,” Joe Bryant said in 1996. “But he’s fortunate that he doesn’t have to be pressured for money. We’re hardly rich, but we’re comfortable. And he’s never wanted for anything.”
Kobe did decide to go professional right after high school, and he became an NBA superstar and eventual Hall of Famer, leading the Los Angeles Lakers to five NBA titles. He was 41 when he and his 13-year-old daughter, Gianna, died in a helicopter crash near Los Angeles in 2020.
Joe Bryant and his wife had been estranged from Kobe for a time over their concerns about their son’s marriage to Vanessa Urbieta Cornejo. They did not attend the wedding, and there was a lawsuit over who owned some Kobe memorabilia, though in later years the relationship thawed.
The father and son also differed on the court. Joe Bryant “had as good a passing skill as anybody that played at that time, other than Magic,” said Del Harris, the Lakers coach, in 1998, referring to Magic Johnson. “But Joe Bryant was big and bulky, with not the same kind of athletic ability Kobe has. He was more of a fun-loving guy. Kobe is just focused and all business.”
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