Lakers News: Kobe Bryant Clarifies Instagram Post About Daughter’s Basketball Team

Since Kobe Bryant‘s retirement following the 2015-16 NBA season with the Los Angeles Lakers, he has thrived in his post-basketball career with Kobe Inc. and Granity Studios.

Along with Bryant’s successful businesses, he is still involved with the sport by working out with current players while coaching his second daughter’s basketball team.

As the 41-year-old has been focused on teaching the fundamentals, the wins have eventually followed.

However, Bryant came under fire for his recent Instagram post where he wrote about his team’s journey — highlighted by a seventh player missing a game for a dance recital:

View this post on Instagram

Here’s our fourth place “winners” picture lol six of the kids in the picture stayed with me and worked every single day to get better and continue to work to this day. The 7th player (not in pic) missed this game for a dance recital so that should tell you where her focus was at this time, meaning she enjoyed dance more than ball which is fine. Now? She eats sleeps and breaths the game. So from this original group of 7 we have added a player TWO years YOUNGER (6th grade now), a player who’s team in our area folded and a player who’s family moved here from Tennessee. The beauty of coaching is growing the players from the ground up. That journey continues #mambas #2yearsago

A post shared by Kobe Bryant (@kobebryant) on Sep 11, 2019 at 12:03pm PDT

Bryant quickly clarified his controversial post, via Twitter:

Nah fam I was just explaining why she wasn’t in the pic. Most of my kids on the team played and still play other sports including my daughter so it’s all love. Don’t misunderstand the message.

— Kobe Bryant (@kobebryant) September 11, 2019

Doing a dance to miss the game isn’t a bad thing. That’s not what I was saying. I was just giving context as to why she wasn’t in the picture. All my girls play/played diff sports. It’s all good and For the record I followed their lead on not smiling. They HATED those trophies

— Kobe Bryant (@kobebryant) September 11, 2019

Over the past day, there have been heated debates about these comments. As some are trying to twist Bryant’s message, he supports the youth playing different sports and revealed he followed the team’s lead by not smiling.

When it comes to youth sports, one controversy has been about participation trophies. One can make a case for either side, but Bryant’s team was not happy about finishing in fourth place and are working every day to change that.