Jerome Miron/USA TODAY Sports
Los Angeles Lakers forward Kobe Bryant (24) during the game between the Rockets and the Lakers at the Toyota Center in August 2016..JPG
- Kobe Bryant and his 13-year-old daughter, Gianna, were among 9 people who died in a helicopter crash on Sunday in Calabasas, California.
- The Los Angeles Lakers - the team where Bryant spent his entire NBA career until retiring in 2016 - were on a flight from Philadelphia to Los Angeles when news broke of Bryant's death.
- The Lakers held their first team practice since his death on Wednesday, where they ate lunch and "grieved together," according to the team's coach, Frank Vogel.
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The Los Angeles Lakers met at their practice facility on Wednesday for the first time since Kobe Bryant's death.
Coach Frank Vogel told reporters that the team had lunch and "grieved together" while having a light practice, according to CNN.
Bryant, his 13-year-old daughter Gianna, and seven others died in a helicopter crash in Calabasas, California, on Sunday. In the days since, memorials for the NBA icon, who spent his nearly 20-year career with the Lakers until his 2016 retirement, have popped up worldwide as athletes and celebrities share personal tributes and stories about the athlete.
The Lakers were on a flight from Philadelphia to Los Angeles when news of Bryant's death broke on Sunday.
Vogel told reporters that the team gathered on Wednesday at their facility in El Segundo, California, to do some shooting drills and got together in a way they thought would be "therapeutically beneficial."
AP Photo/Mark J. Terrill
Los Angeles Lakers head coach Frank Vogel, left, talks with forward LeBron James, center, and forward Anthony Davis at their NBA basketball practice facility on January 29, 2020
"I think it's therapeutic," Vogel told ESPN. "Any time you can get out and take your mind off something like this, there's no doubt it will be therapeutic and just help with the process of us moving forward."
He said that LeBron James' and Anthony Davis' leadership has been consistent since Bryant's death, and that they have "been vocal in terms of just helping the group manage their emotions and get through this."
The team has put spotlights on Bryant's Nos. 8 and 24 that are displayed on the practice facility's walls.
"We want to represent what Kobe was about more than anything," Vogel said tp reporters of Bryant's legacy. "We've always wanted to make him proud. And that's not going to be any different here."
Also Wednesday, Bryant's widow, Vanessa Bryant, issued her first statement about the deadly helicopter crash, saying she and her daughters are "completely devastated" over what happened.
"My girls and I want to thank the millions of people who've shown support and love during this horrific time. Thank you for all the prayers. We definitely need them," she wrote.
She also announced that she had started a fund called MambaOnThree Foundation to support families who were killed in Sunday's crash.
The fund was set up with help from Kobe Bryant's youth sports charity, the Mamba Sports Foundation, in order to further Kobe and Gianna's legacy, she said.
- Read more:
- Kawhi Leonard says he uses the same helicopter program that Kobe Bryant did and even flew with the same pilot
- Vanessa Bryant announced a fund to direct donations to other families of victims of the helicopter crash that killed Kobe and Gianna
- This timeline shows everything we know - and what we don't - about the helicopter crash that killed Kobe Bryant, his daughter, and 7 other people
- Investigators have recovered all 9 bodies from the Calabasas site where Kobe Bryant's helicopter crashed