Kobe Bryant 19-foot statue unveiled at Lakers’ arena

LOS ANGELES — Kobe Bryant will live forever outside the Lakers’ home arena.

More than four years after Bryant, his daughter Gianna Bryant and seven others died in a helicopter crash, a 19-foot statue was unveiled on Thursday outside of the Crypto.com Arena in downtown Los Angeles, KTLA reported.

The date of the unveiling, 2/8/24, was significant for the Bryants. Gianna Bryant wore No. 2 while Kobe Bryant wore both 8 and 24 over his career, KNBC reported.

The bronze monument joins those of Magic Johnson, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Elgin Baylor, Jerry West, Chick Hearn and Shaquille O’Neal in the courtyard outside the “House that Kobe Built.”

The statue, which weighs 4,000 pounds, sports Kobe Bryant’s No. 8 jersey as he holds his right index finger in the air, depicting when he totaled 81 points against the Toronto Raptors in 2006, The Associated Press reported. It stands on a triangle base to represent Tex Winter’s triangle offense and replicas of the Larry O’Brien Trophy. The statue has “Kobe Bean Bryant” and his nickname “Black Mamba” carved on it.

“This statue may look like Kobe, but really it’s what excellence looks like,” Abdul-Jabbar said during the ceremony. “What discipline looks like. What commitment looks like. ... It captures a person frozen in time, while at the same time acknowledges that the reason there is a statue in the first place is because that person is timeless. We’re all here today to honor a man who represents not just extraordinary sports achievement, but also timeless values that inspire us all to try harder to be not just better, but our best.”

This is the first of three statues that will be created in his memory.

Kobe Bryant spent most of his 20-year career with the Lakers before he retired in 2016 as the fourth-leading scorer in the history of the NBA (33,643 points). He earned 18 NBA All-Star selections with two NBA Finals MVP awards.

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