Athletes reflect on Kobe Bryant's impact on women's basketball 5 years after his death

Dearica Hamby still smiles at the memory of Kobe Bryant sitting courtside at WNBA games.

She had met him years ago. He came to see her old team, the Las Vegas Aces, play all the time.

"I think one of the first things he told me was that I could play defence," Hamby recalled. "And I was kind of like `Wha-at?' … That's something I'll cherish with me forever."

That epitomized the late NBA great's relationship with the women's game. After his 20-year playing career ended, Bryant turned his focus to the next generation, mentoring some of women's basketball's biggest stars, from WNBA champion and Olympic gold medallist Diana Taurasi to former Oregon star Sabrina Ionescu.

He worked out with them, analyzed the strengths and weaknesses of their game and pushed for them to reach the same heights in popularity that he and his NBA peers did.

For Hamby, now with the Los Angeles Sparks, Bryant saw an aspect of her game she didn't even know she had.

"If Kobe tells you you can play defence, you can play defence," she quipped.

Five years after Bryant, 13-year-old daughter Gianna and seven others were killed in a helicopter crash in Calabasas, Calif., several women's basketball players reflected on what he meant to their game and how he championed it. Many of them thought Bryant would be pleased with the overall progress of women's sports, which have skyrocketed in popularity and reach in recent years.

That growth has been most prominent in the women's basketball arenas that Bryant and Gianna loved so much.

The WNBA last season had its most-watched regular season in 24 years and its best attendance in 22 seasons. Some of the league's most popular players currently are competing in a new 3-on-3 league in South Florida called Unrivaled,