Former NBA player Joe “Jellybean” Bryant, the father of Hall of Famer Kobe Bryant, has died. He was 69.
An official cause of Bryant’s death was not announced as of Tuesday morning. La Salle University, where Bryant played and coached, said in a statement that Bryant “was a beloved member of the Explorer family and will be dearly missed.”
Longtime Philadelphia-area basketball coach Fran Dunphy, who currently is the head coach at La Salle, told the Philadelphia Inquirer that Bryant recently suffered a massive stroke.
Joe Bryant seldom appeared in public after Kobe Bryant’s death in a helicopter crash in 2020. The former Los Angeles Lakers superstar told ESPN in 2010 that Joe was “a great basketball mind” and credited his father with teaching him “from an early age how to view the game, how to prepare for the game and how to execute.”
Joe Bryant played and coached professionally both in the United States and internationally after starring at La Salle, where he averaged 20.8 points per game in two seasons with the Explorers. He was a first-round draft selection of the Golden State Warriors in 1975 before being acquired later that year by the Philadelphia 76ers.
“Joe ‘Jellybean’ Bryant was a local basketball icon, whose legacy on the court transcended his journey across Bartram High School, La Salle University, and his first four NBA seasons with the 76ers from 1975-79,” the Sixers said in a statement. “Our condolences go out to the Bryant family.”
The 6-foot-9 Bryant played parts of eight seasons in the NBA with the Sixers, Clippers and Rockets, averaging 8.7 points and 4.0 rebounds in 606 career games. He was a member of the 1976-77 Sixers team that lost to the Trail Blazers in the NBA Finals.
After playing nearly a decade overseas in France and Italy, Bryant started coaching in 1992. He was the head coach for the WNBA’s Los Angeles Sparks for parts of three seasons and also coached in various roles at both the professional and college levels in the U.S., Japan and Thailand.