President Donald Trump is planning to honor the late Kobe Bryant.
Speaking in the East Room of the White House on Thursday, Trump revealed plans to commission a statue of the Los Angeles Lakers legend Bryant in The National Garden of American Heroes, a proposed sculpture garden that Trump had initially unveiled the plans for back in 2020 during his first term in office. The announcement came as part of a White House event for Black History Month, which is observed in February.
Trump also said in his remarks that other black icons, including athletes such as Jackie Robinson and Muhammad Ali and historical figures like Martin Luther King Jr., Frederick Douglass, Harriet Tubman, and Rosa Parks, will be honored with statues in the garden too (alongside hundreds of other American heroes).
“We’re picking the final sites now,” said Trump of the proposed garden, per The Hill. “It’s between various states that want it very badly. We’ll honor hundreds of our greatest Americans to ever live, including countless Black American icons.”
Bryant, the five-time NBA champion and 18-time NBA All-Star, died in a Jan. 2020 helicopter crash at the age of 41. Also killed in the crash was Bryant’s 13-year-old daughter Gianna along with seven others.
The Lakers already commissioned a statue of Bryant outside of Crypto.com Arena in 2024, but that statue was marred by multiple spelling errors that ended up having to be fixed. A second statue, this one honoring both Kobe and Gianna, went up outside Crypto.com Arena later that year as well. Now the two-time Finals MVP Bryant is set to get another statue in his honor.
