Lakers Honor Late Kobe Bryant With Touching Monument
By Cem Yolbulan
The Los Angeles Lakers legend Kobe Bryant passed away in January 2020 in a tragic helicopter crash along with his daughter Gigi and seven others but his impact is still felt to this day. He remains one of the most beloved figures in the city of Los Angeles and for basketball. To honor him, the Lakers are unveiling a monument on Friday, according to ESPN's Dave McMenamin.
The monument will feature Kobe and Gianna "Gigi" Bryant, who passed away when she was 13 years old. The statue will be located outside of Crypto.com Arena next to the Los Angeles Kings' monument celebrating their 50th anniversary.
The unveiling date of 8/2/2024 represents Kobe and Gigi's jersey numbers of 8, 2, and 24.
This is the second of three planned statues to honor the late great Bryant. The first was unveiled earlier this year to commemorate Kobe's historic 81-point performance against the Toronto Raptors. The 19-foot, 4,000-pound bronze memorial depicts Kobe wearing his No.8 jersey. The third statue, in which he will be donning the No. 24, will be revealed at some point next year.
Bryant was the seventh Laker to get a statue after Jerry West, Elgin Baylor, Magic Johnson, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Shaquille O'Neal, and announcer Chick Hearn, but the second monument will make him the first Laker to get multiple statues.
According to ESPN, the monument will be available for the public to visit starting Saturday morning. Since the ceremony on Friday will be private, we are going to have to wait to see what the touching memorial looks like.
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