Los Angeles Lakers Former Top Player Return Due To….
Kobe Bryant was one of the greatest players in NBA history, which is why the Los Angeles Lakers honored his memory with a statue outside of Crypto.com Arena on February 8, 2024. However, this statue of Kobe was quickly met with backlash due to Lakers fans noticing several errors. Included on the statue was the box score of Bryant’s historic 81-point game against the Toronto Raptors, but there were spelling errors in the names of Jose Calderon, Von Wafer, and others.
When this was noticed by Lakers officials, the team issued a statement saying that they had known about this issue for weeks and were working on getting the correct changes made to Kobe’s statue. That time has finally come, as the Kobe Bryant statue in front of the Lakers’ area was restored on Tuesday morning, according to ESPN’s Dave McMenamin.
Of course, Kobe’s statue was corrected and fixed ahead of the Lakers’ season finale against the Golden State Warriors on Tuesday night.
In addition to fixing the misspelled names of Calderon and Wafer on Bryant’s statue, the formatting on the list of statical achievements throughout Bryant’s career was also adjusted slightly. The Lakers’ main goal for the restoration process with this statue was to not only provide accurate information on the NBA legend but also ensure that all the information was correct in order to honor his legacy. Bryant’s exact signature on the monument was also changed from “Kobe 24” to just simply “Kobe.”
Bryant and his 13-year-old daughter Gianna were tragically killed during a helicopter crash that took place in Calabasas, California, in January 2020. The Lakers, who have honored Bryant and his death on countless occasions throughout the course of the last several years, made the unveiling of the Hall of Famer’s statue a special occasion on Feb. 8, 2024, a date that represents both Kobe and Gianna for their jersey numbers.
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The NCAA March Madness Tournament has finally concluded, but much of the discussion around college basketball was focused on the women’s side as opposed to the men’s. NBA stars such as Los Angeles Lakers’ LeBron James and Damian Lillard of the Milwaukee Bucks among many others were some of the millions of viewers of those women’s tournament contests.
Stars such as Iowa’s Caitlin Clark, UConn’s Paige Bueckers, LSU’s Angel Reese and Flau’jae Johnson and USC’s Juju Watkins are more popular than any of their men’s counterparts and LeBron feels this is a big reason for the rise in popularity of the women’s game.
On the latest edition of the Mind the Game podcast with JJ Redick, LeBron spoke on the ability of the women of college basketball to really build their legacy over multiple years whereas most of the top men’s players are gone after one year:
LeBron is right in the fact that women’s stars staying in college really increases their popularity. When there are multiple of those level of players around at the same time, it makes the matchups between them must-watch and that was the case during this year’s tournament.
The National Championship game between Clark and Iowa against undefeated juggernaut South Carolina averaged 18.7 million viewers on ABC and was the most watched basketball game, college or pro, since 2019.
While Clark’s legendary college career has come to an end, as has that of LSU’s Reese, who led the Tigers to last year’s national championship by defeating Clark’s Hawkeyes, there is still a ton of star power remaining in the women’s game with Bueckers, Watkins, Johnson and Iowa State’s Audi Crooks chief among them. As Redick added, it is simply a matter of time and evolution and right now it is the women’s time.
Of course LeBron James himself has never played in the NCAA March Madness Tournament as he jumped to the NBA straight out of high school. But the Lakers superstar admits that he thinks about the idea of playing in the tournament every year around this time.
LeBron noted that this is the only time of year he thinks about it as he doesn’t watch much college basketball overall. But when March Madness comes around, James, likely in an Ohio State jersey, goes through his mind.
Lakers Can Secure Important Postseason Berth Tonight
Tuesday night could be a very big one for the Los Angeles Lakers.
After weeks of fighting hard with both good and bad results, the Lakers’ Play-In Tournament chances could be decided.
NBA Communications tweeted a list of Western Conference clinch scenarios for Tuesday.
Among them is a big one for the Lakers: they will be locked into a Play-In game with a loss and with wins by any two of the Phoenix Suns, New Orleans Pelicans, and Sacramento Kings
Meanwhile, the team they are playing against on Tuesday, the Golden State Warriors, will be locked into a Play-In game with a loss or with a New Orleans win and a win by either the Suns or the Kings.
When the season began, big things were expected for the Lakers.
As time went on, they started to face some serious difficulties and moved up and down in the standings.
They were the ninth seed in the West on Tuesday morning, holding a 45-34 record and just behind the Pelicans and Suns.
This is a situation that the Lakers have been in before.
Even though the Play-In Tournament is young, the Lakers have their fair share of experience in it.
Last year, they pushed past the Minnesota Timberwolves in the Play-In and then ended up storming through the West, all the way to the Western Conference Finals against the Denver Nuggets.