Vanessa Bryant gives powerful speech inducting Kobe Bryant into Basketball Hall of Fame

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NBC News – While delivering her speech at the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame, Vanessa Bryant imagined her late husband Kobe Bryant’s reaction to hearing her praise.

“I can see him now, arms folded with a huge grin saying, ‘Isn’t this some s—,” Bryant said, noting that she rarely praised her husband in public and that he would get a kick out of her speech.

On Saturday, Kobe Bryant was posthumously inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame, along with other NBA superstars like Tim Duncan and Kevin Garnett. Bryant was among a group of nine inducted into the Hall of Fame on Saturday, more than a year after their induction was announced as the class of 2020.

Bryant, who won five NBA championships with the Los Angeles Lakers, and his daughter Gianna “Gigi” Bryant, who was 13, died in a helicopter crash in January of 2020.