Joe ‘Jellybean’ Bryant, former NBA player and father of Kobe, dies at age of 69

Joe “Jellybean” Bryant, the father of the late Kobe Bryant, has died at the age of 69.

Like his son, Bryant was selected in the first round of the NBA draft. He played in the NBA for eight seasons with spells at the Philadelphia 76ers, San Diego Clippers and Houston Rockets. He then played in Europe for 10 years, mostly in Italy. He averaged 8.7 points and 4.0 rebounds during his NBA career, and helped the 76ers to the 1977 NBA finals, where they lost to the Portland Trail Blazers.

After his retirement from playing, he had a coaching career that included stops in Thailand and Japan, and with the WNBA’s Los Angeles Sparks. He was also an assistant at La Salle, where he played college basketball. On Tuesday, La Salle said Bryant “was a beloved member of the Explorer family and will be dearly missed.”

Although a cause of death has not been made public, Bryant is understood to have recently suffered a stroke.

Kobe Bryant often credited his father for helping him develop into one of the NBA’s greatest ever players. In 2010, Kobe Bryant told ESPN that his father taught him “from an early age how to view the game, how to prepare for the game and how to execute”.

Joe Bryant’s last coaching post was in 2015, and he largely withdrew from public life after Kobe was killed in a helicopter crash in 2020. As well as Kobe, he had two daughters, Sharia and Shaya.