Michael Jordan feels comfortable revealing his last conversation with the late, great Kobe Bryant just before he helps induct the legendary Laker into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame.
It is apropos for the former player considered the greatest ever to induct the man who was virtually a carbon copy of himself, which will take place on Saturday, May 15, 2021.
Jordan showed ESPN’s Jackie MacMullan what his last texts were to him before Bryant and his daughter, Gianna Bryant, perished in a helicopter crash on Jan. 26, 2020. Seven other lives were also lost in the mountains north of Los Angeles.
The Black Mamba was sampling some of Air Jordan’s Cincoro Tequila that the mentor sent Bryant.
“This tequila is awesome,” Bryant texted, according to Jordan’s phone.
“Thank you, my brother,” Jordan responded.
The two all-time greats shared a very close bond that began in the late 1990s when Jordan was on his way out of the league and Bryant had just emerged as a premier talent. This is why MJ was chosen by Bryant’s widow, Vanessa Bryant, to deliver the keynote speech at her late husband’s memorial at the Staples Center in downtown Los Angeles in February 2020.
And now Jordan will give Bryant a final sendoff befitting a king at the ceremony in Springfield, Massachusetts, on Saturday.
