Kobe Bryant's daughter Natalia Bryant shows love to Diana Taurasi as she bids farewell to basketball after 2 decades

Kobe Bryant’s daughter, Natalia Bryant, shows love to Diana Taurasi after the basketball legend announced her retirement on Tuesday. Bryant followed the footsteps of her mother, Vanessa Bryant, who also paid tribute to the two-time WNBA Finals MVP on the same day. The University of Southern California student shared her thoughts about Taurasi’s retirement on Instagram.

Natalia reposted a message from the WNBA with a heart emoji tagging the Phoenix Mercury icon, on her IG story:

“The only way to stop her, was to wait for the end.”

Natalia Bryant honors Diana Taurasi on Instagram after the WNBA legend announced her retirement on Tuesday. [photo: @nataliabryant/IG]

After 21 years playing pro basketball, 20 in the WNBA, the White Mamba called it a career. Many consider her the greatest women’s basketball player of all time (GOAT). She ends her career with three championships, 14 All-WNBA selections and multiple league records. Taurasi won the 2009 MVP award, the 2004 Rookie of the Year trophy and led the WNBA in scoring for five seasons.

Diana Taurasi was noncommittal about her future after the Phoenix Mercury lost in the playoffs to the Minnesota Lynx in 2024. Many speculated that the Mercury's 101-88 game 2 loss to Napheesa Collier and Co. would be her last in the WNBA. Five months later, the end eventually arrived.

Taurasi is a huge Kobe Bryant fan. She adored the LA Lakers because of the Black Mamba. It did not surprise anyone that Natalia Bryant and Vanessa Bryant honored her with heartfelt messages.

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Kobe Bryant once said Diana Taurasi approached him to claim she was the White Mamba

ESPN created a video to honor Diana Taurasi, with Vanessa Bryant, the late Kobe Bryant's wife, narrating the story of one of the greatest women's basketball players of all time.

The narration began with Taurasi aspiring to be a Laker because the WNBA did not exist when she was still a young girl. When the league was eventually formed in 1997, Taurasi promptly set her sights on joining the legends she saw on TV.

The story continued when from Taurasi went from college sports hero to becoming one of the best in the WNBA. Midway through the clip, Kobe Bryant, the LA Lakers icon, said:

(2:04 mark)

“She came on to me and she said, ‘I’m the White Mamba.’ I said, ‘Yes, you are.’ She has every bit of the temperament."

Vanessa Bryant narrated how the work behind the scenes enabled Diana Taurasi to build a legendary career. Bryant called it the Mamba Mentality at work, showing how Taurasi's hard work away from the spotlight played a key role in her career.