Perhaps no one deserves to have multiple statues dedicated to them more than Los Angeles Lakers legend Kobe Bryant.

The first statue was erected in front of Crypto.com Arena and depicts Bryant wearing his number 8 jersey with his finger pointing to the sky, a tribute to his 81-point game against the Toronto Raptors. A third statue is scheduled to be unveiled sometime during the upcoming 2024-25 season, alongside the second statue, which depicts him with his daughter Gianna.

Since Bryant’s retirement, numerous players have paid tribute to him, although current Lakers players like D’Angelo Russell were fortunate enough to play alongside him. Russell was a rookie during Bryant’s final year and got to learn from one of the best players to ever pick up a basketball.

Russell was also fortunate enough to be on the court with Bryant in his final NBA game, and on the podcast “Run Your Race” he described the night when the legend scored 60 points:

“Brother, when you have the ball and they boo you, you know what that means. Get the ball to the man. He just wanted to score a goal. I remember Julius saying, ‘Brother, I just want to get on the scoreboard. I just want to score a goal. I don’t want to score zero points.’ So everyone just wanted to score two points, so just two. He’s going to score all the other points.

“So that’s what it was like. We were really running around trying to get the ball to him because they were holding him. He was shooting tough twos, like one-legged twos inside the three-point line, like pull-ups. You just see his face, he looked young. He just looked like he had it in him. I don’t know what got him through that shit. He didn’t come out of the game. But he was prepared. You could see it, mentally he was prepared. Everyone in the world was at the game. Denzel, Shaq, like everybody.”

It was a spectacle in the arena that night as Bryant did everything in his power to go out with a bang. Every time he touched the ball, it went up, much to the delight of everyone there to see it live.

Bryant’s final game is legendary and will probably go down as the best farewell in NBA history. Perhaps this third statue will find a way to represent this game that no one will soon forget.

Lakers player D’Angelo Russell talks about his relationship with Kobe Bryant

D’Angelo Russell previously admitted that he didn’t understand much of Kobe Bryant’s advice, but detailed that the two had a great relationship during the one year they played together.

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