Or maybe the image Kobe Bryant and his family choose to immortalize him outside the team’s home arena will be him, arms outstretched, celebrating another title while confetti and adoration surround him from all angles.
It’s a tightly guarded secret.
But on Feb. 8. 2024 — 2-8-24 — the Lakers and Bryant’s family will unveil a statue celebrating Bryant and revealing the image they chose, putting him alongside Elgin Baylor, Jerry West, Chick Hearn, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Magic Johnson and Shaquille O’Neal in front of Cypto.com Arena.
“As you know, Kobe played his entire 20-year NBA career as a Los Angeles Laker,” Vanessa Bryant, the legend’s widow, said in a video announcing the project. “Since arriving in this city and joining the Lakers organization, he felt at home here, playing in the City of Angels. On behalf of the Lakers, my daughters and me, I am so honored that, right in the center of Los Angeles, in front of the place known as the house that Kobe built, we are going to unveil his statue so that his legacy can be celebrated forever.”
The date is significant because it incorporates the No. 8 and No. 24 jersey numbers worn by Bryant during his 20-year Lakers career, as well as the No. 2 jersey daughter Gianna Bryant wore as a player for Kobe’s Mamba Academy.
Kobe and Gianna Bryant were among the nine people who died in a helicopter crash on Jan. 26, 2020.
The Lakers posted the announcement at 8:24 a.m. on Aug. 24, which has become known as Mamba Day as a nod to Bryant’s jersey numbers.
The team hired Julie Rotblatt Amrany, the sculptor of each of the other Lakers monuments outside the arena, to create the Bryant statue.
“Kobe’s transcendent spirit is always and forever in our hearts — inspiring us every day,” Bryant’s former agent and current Lakers general manager Rob Pelinka said in a statement. “And now, with the unveiling of this powerful and beautiful statue, he will have a physical presence, too. A place on the hallowed ground Kobe created, where we can all gather and pay honor to a mighty and great man.”
The Lakers will host Denver on Feb. 8 when they unveil the statue, the first “in a series of physical tributes,” the team said.
“Kobe Bryant was one of the most extraordinary athletes of all time, and one of the most iconic individuals in the history of Los Angeles,” Lakers owner Jeanie Buss said in a statement. “There is no better place for Kobe to be honored with a statue than here, at the center of our city, where everyone can celebrate him and be inspired by his incredible achievements.”