Lakers finalize plans for Kobe Bryant statue, with team to unveil 8/8/24 in nod to his jersey numbers – and tribute WILL include daughter Gigi three years after couple died with seven others in helicopter crash
Lakers finalize plans for Kobe Bryant statue, with team to unveil 8/8/24 in nod to his jersey numbers – and tribute WILL include daughter Gigi three years after couple died with seven others in helicopter crash
- A Bryant statue outside Crypto.com Arena has been in the works for a while
- The play includes his daughter Gigi, who also died in the helicopter crash
- DailyMail.com provides all the latest international sports news
The promised statue of Kobe Bryant outside LA’s Crypto.com Arena will feature his daughter Gigi and – in a nod to his jersey numbers, 8 and 24 – will be unveiled by the Lakers on August 8, 2024, an internal source has told DailyMail.com . .
Lakers owner Jeanie Buss previously revealed plans to erect a statue to Bryant after he, his 13-year-old daughter Gigi, six friends and a pilot were killed in a helicopter crash in January 2020.
The source tells DailyMail.com that Bryant’s widow, Vanessa, is involved in the plans, but cautioned that an artist has not yet been chosen for the piece.
Team spokespersons did not immediately respond to DailyMail.com’s request for confirmation.
Lakers fans have grown impatient for a memorial in Bryant’s honor, though many have speculated that the team would wait until 2024 to unveil the statue.
Lakers great Kobe Bryant and his daughter Gigi watch a Nets-Hawks game in Brooklyn in 2019
People gather around a makeshift memorial to Kobe Bryant near Staples Center in 2020
Bryant’s widow, Vanessa, is involved in the plans, but an artist has not yet been selected
“Why don’t we still have a Kobe statue outside Staples Center?” popular Lakers-centric Twitter user, @LakeShowYo, early on Aug. 5.
The question received several similar answers: “They are waiting until 2024.”
There was already a Kobe/Gigi statue at the crash site in Calabasas, California, but there were no plans to keep the piece there permanently.
The statue, a 150-pound bronze sculpture, was created by Southern California artist Dan Medina and depicted Bryant in his Lakers uniform with his arm around Gigi, himself a budding basketball player at the time of the crash.
A Kobe/Gigi statue already stood at the crash site in Calabasas (pictured)
The base has the inscription ‘heroes come and go, but legends are forever’, along with the names of the other victims of the crash – Christina Mauser; Payton and Sarah Chester; John, Keri and Alyssa Altobelli; and pilot Ara Zobayan.
Fans took pictures of the statue and left flowers and other memorials at the crash site. The statue is a smaller version of a life-sized sculpture he is working on that he hopes can find a location in downtown Los Angeles.
Medina also said he hopes the smaller version eventually ends up at the crash site.
“I think we did it the right way. I have not broken any law. No rubbish was left behind,” he told The Associated Press in 2022. “I hope by showing that something we did spontaneously and in the right way can lead to something further.”