Kobe Bryant will always be remembered as one of the most-clutch players in NBA history.

Perhaps the five-time NBA champion could use some of that ability to deliver under pressure by repairing his strained relationship with his parents.

As part of a recent ESPN feature about Bryant, Kobe revealed that he hasn't spoken with his parents in nearly three years. They last spoke in 2013, before his parents auctioned off some of his Lower Merion High School memorabilia without asking him first.

"Our relationship is s***," Bryant told ESPN. "I say [to them], 'I'm going to buy you a very nice home, and the response is 'That's not good enough?'" Then you're selling my s***?"

Damn. His parents auctioned six of his items for $500,000, before later offering an apology statement.

"We regret our actions and statements related to the Kobe Bryant auction memorabilia," Pamela and Joe Bryant, a former NBA player himself, said at the time, as reported by ESPN. "We apologize for any misunderstanding and unintended pain we may have caused our son and appreciate the financial support that he has provided to us over the years."

Fortunately, Bryant says his relationship with his sisters, Sharia and Shaya, is much better because he extracted money from the equation. It wasn't easy for him to do, but he's glad he did it.

"They're very smart, college-educated [women]," Kobe told ESPN. "I'm really proud of them. They were able to get their own jobs, get their own lives, take care of themselves. Now they have a better sense of self, of who they are as people, instead of being resentful because they were relying on me."

He added: "It was tough for me to do. But it's something you have to do, something you have to be very strong about."

Let's hope that Kobe and his parents could patch things up.

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(Photo: Ezra Shaw/Getty Images)