Getty/Christian Petersen/Michael Reaves
Kobe Bryant and Kawhi Leonard.
- Kawhi Leonard uses the same helicopter program as Kobe Bryant did, and has even flown with the same pilot.
- Bryant and his daughter died in a helicopter crash in Calabasas, California on Sunday alongside seven others, one of whom was pilot Ara Zobayan.
- "Great guy. Super nice. He was one of the best pilots," Leonard told ESPN of Zobayan. "He will drop me off and say he is about [to] go pick up Kobe. Or he'll just be like, 'I just dropped Kobe off, and he said hello.'"
- Leonard said he consulted Bryant about using Island Express Helicopters to travel to and from Los Angeles following his move to the Clippers last summer.
- After the crash, however, Leonard is now unsure whether he will fly again, saying there are "a lot of thoughts" going through his head.
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Kawhi Leonard uses the same helicopter program as Kobe Bryant did, and has even flown with the same pilot.
He now says he doesn't know whether he will fly again.
Bryant and his 13-year-old daughter, Gianna, died in a helicopter crash in Calabasas, California on Sunday. Seven others also lost their lives, one of whom was the pilot, Ara Zobayan.
"Great guy. Super nice. He was one of the best pilots," Leonard said of Zobayan to ESPN. "That is a guy who you ask for to fly you from city to city."
Bryant used Island Express Helicopters to fly to and from his home in Newport County to Los Angeles for nearly two decades. When Leonard moved into the area following his move to the Clippers last summer, he consulted Bryant about using a helicopter to commute in the same way, according to ESPN.
"The whole situation, this whole program, the setup, how [Bryant] was traveling back and forth was the same way I was getting here from San Diego," said Leonard.
He added: "[Zobayan] will drop me off and say he is about [to] go pick up Kobe. Or he'll just be like, 'I just dropped Kobe off, and he said hello.' Vice versa. So it's a crazy interaction."
Zobayan was flying Bryant's Sikorsky S-76 private helicopter at the time of the accident.
The vehicle took-off at 9.06 a.m. local time from Orange County's John Wayne Airport, and headed towards the Mamba Sports Academy in Thousand Oaks, where his daughter was set to play in a basketball game.
En route, however, Zobayan encountered foggy conditions, resulting in him reportedly climbing about 875 feet in less than one minute to avoid a cloud layer, before crashing into the hills on the descent.
An investigation into the exact circumstances surrounding the crash is ongoing.
Asked whether he has any worries about flying again after the accident, Leonard said: "I feel like that ... I mean ... the things that you hear, you don't know what's real yet.
"I can't really speak on it. I don't know. I don't know yet. It's a lot of thoughts in my head."
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