Bringing back their “Black Mamba” uniforms, the Los Angeles Lakers pay tribute to Kobe Bryant on Game 4 of their first round series with the Portland Trail Blazers in honor of Bryant’s birthday on Sunday and it being 8/24.
Throughout the second half of this season since the awful death of Kobe, his daughter Gigi, and the nine others that were killed in the helicopter crash that rocked the sports world in January, the Lakers have offered various tributes to their legendary star.
City of Los Angeles city council president Herb J. Wesson announced that Bryant’s memory will live on outside of Staples Center where the Lakers play every day going forward when they rename Figueroa Street, “Kobe Bryant Boulevard.”
Figueroa St. will soon be Kobe Bryant Blvd. between Olympic & MLK.
The renamed section will run from MLK Jr Blvd, down by USC’s campus, to Olympic Blvd, just past L.A. Live, putting Staples Center officially at 1111 Kobe Bryant Blvd. It’s a great gesture by the city of L.A. and a fitting tribute to Bryant, given that he made Staples one of L.A.’s hottest destinations for almost two decades.
A statue to join those of Shaquille O’Neal and other Laker (and Kings) legends is surely on the way for outside of Staples, as well, and the center of the L.A. sports world residing on Kobe Bryant Boulevard seems just about right.
