“Aged 6, Kobe would often jump off the balcony of his parents’ house, cross a busy road and run to a church playground, where he would spend hours throwing a ball in the basket."
MOVIEWEB VIDEO OF THE DAY
Kobe Bryant’s Life in His Beloved Italy Gets Told
When the Bryant family moved to Reggio Emilia, a 12-year-old Kobe Bryant joined the local youth basketball team. Longtime friend and former teammate Davide Giudici said:
“Today, we unveiled a series of outstanding projects underlining the strength of our commitment to Italian audiences, offering the largest and best content selection they can find. These exciting announcements about originals, exclusives, and live sports highlight our growing and continuous commitment for the Italian audiovisual industry, as well as our goal to become the entertainment hub for Italian customers, offering a wide range of content that not only reaches all our customers and meets their passions, but also attracts new stakeholders, who see in our streaming service an opportunity for growth.”
Giudici added that Bryant never lost touch with Italy and his childhood friends. Kobe Bryant was 13 when he and his family left Italy in 1991, and he did move on to become one of the most celebrated players in NBA history.
“When he moved to Reggio Emilia and started playing in my team, it was immediately clear he was from another planet, a cut above us all. When he often told us that one day he would become a professional NBA player, we would make fun of him. The last time I saw him was in 2016, when he came to town for a sponsored event. It was right after he retired, and I teased him saying that I still played [in the second Italian league] and he didn’t.”
