Kobe Bryant Said His Daughter Gianna, 13, Wanted to Continue His Legacy Before Their Tragic Deaths

Before their tragic and sudden deaths, Kobe Bryant‘s 13-year-old daughter Gianna was looking to follow in her father’s footsteps.

After the NBA legend, 41, and Gianna, who was nicknamed Gigi, were killed in a Calabasas helicopter crash on Sunday morning, a video resurfaced on Twitter from a prior interview Bryant did on Jimmy Kimmel Live.

In the clip, Kimmel asked the retired athlete if Gianna wants to pursue a career in basketball just like her dad. “She does for sure. This kid, man,” Kobe said.

“The best thing that happens is when we go out and fans come up to me, and she’ll be standing next to me, and they’ll be like, ‘You gotta have a boy, you and [wife Vanessa] gotta have a boy, somebody else to carry on the tradition, the legacy,’ ” the proud dad explained.

“She’s like, ‘Oh, I got this. You don’t need a boy for that. I got this,’ ” he said. “I’m like, ‘That’s right, yes you do. You got this,’ ” he added.

RELATED: Kobe Bryant’s Daughter Gianna, 13, Dead Alongside Father in Calabasas Helicopter Crash

In December, a clip from ESPN showed the father-daughter duo together courtside at a game and Bryant was seen coaching Gianna, who had a big smile on her face.

Kobe and Gigi courtside breaking down the game 📋 pic.twitter.com/FxqSjVx6ew — ESPN (@espn) December 22, 2019

Earlier this month, the former NBA star — who retired in 2016 — revealed that he had recently started watching basketball all the time because of his 13-year-old daughter.

“Before Gigi got into basketball I hardly watched it, but now that’s she’s into basketball, we watch every night,” he told former NBA players Matt Barnes and Stephen Jackson on the Showtime Basketball podcast All the Smoke.

Bryant and his daughter also attended several Lakers games before the start of the new year, marking the first time he had been to a game since his jersey was retired in 2017.

RELATED: Kobe Bryant Opened Up About His Legacy a Week Before Death: ‘I Want to See’ Others ‘Do Better’

View photos Allen Berezovsky/Getty More

“We just had so much fun because it was the first time I was seeing the game through her eyes,” the five-time NBA champion said of sharing the experience with his daughter.

“It wasn’t me sitting there, you know, as an athlete or a player or something like that, and you know it’s like about me, and I don’t like that,” he added. “It was her, she was having such a good time.”

View photos Kobe and Gianna | Harry How/Getty More