Derek Jeter and Kobe Bryant ended their 20-year Hall of Fame careers just two years apart and became business partners, and after Bryant died along with eight others in a helicopter crash on Sunday, Jeter remembered Bryant as more than just a fierce competitor.
“All I ever needed to know about Kobe Bryant was this: That throughout our friendship, the most meaningful conversations we had, they were always about family,’’ Jeter said in a first-person article on The Players Tribune published Sunday night.
“Put aside one of the all-time great basketball careers for a second,’’ Jeter wrote.