On Thursday morning, the Los Angeles Lakers posted a video (fittingly at 8:24 a.m. PT on 8/24) featuring Vanessa Bryant that made the long-awaited announcement that Kobe Bryant will get a statue outside Crypto.com Arena in L.A.
Kobe’s legacy immortalized.
2•8•24 pic.twitter.com/WHQBXZJ2gD
— Los Angeles Lakers (@Lakers) August 24, 2023
As Vanessa Bryant notes, Kobe spent his entire 20-year career with the Lakers and his legacy for the franchise will forever be remembered, but now there are plans for a physical tribute to one of the all-time Laker greats outside the arena. The statue will be unveiled on 2/8/24, where the ceremony will also pay tribute to his daughter, Gianna, who wore the number 2 on her youth team.
We will have to wait to see what the exact statue will feature, as there are a number of possibilities from Kobe’s many iconic moments with the Lakers, but you can be sure that it will be an emotional night when the statue is unveiled prior to an already highly anticipated matchup between the Lakers and the defending champion Nuggets.
It has been more than three years since the tragic helicopter crash that killed Kobe, Gianna, and seven others in Los Angeles, but his memory still looms large over the league where his influence is easy to see. Come February, fans in Los Angeles will have a physical representation of that legacy alongside the rest of the Laker legends immortalized outside the arena.