Pleasing English teachers, pesky typos on Lakers’ Kobe Bryant statue are corrected
Anyone who writes for a living knows the value of a good editor. Sculptors? Not so much.
So when the Lakers unveiled a statue of the late, great Kobe Bryant outside Crypto.com Arena in February, it wasn’t long before nitpickers noticed a few typos.
Beneath the 19-foot likeness of Bryant pointing triumphantly to heaven — a re-creation of a gesture he made in an 81-point performance against the Toronto Raptors in 2006 — is a reproduction of the game’s box score. In it, two other players’ names were misspelled along with the word “decision.”
SoCal murals honor Lakers legend Kobe Bryant, who died four years ago in a helicopter crash that also killed his daughter Gianna and seven others.
On Tuesday, the Lakers fixed those errors before the team’s final regular-season game at home. L.A. wound up suffering a 134-120 loss to the Golden State Warriors.
The names of Raptors guard Jose Calderon and Lakers guard Von Wafer are now spelled correctly — as is “decision” — on the base of the statue.
The Lakers are planning two more statues of Bryant, one in the No. 24 jersey he wore in the second half of his 20-year career and another with his daughter Gianna, who was killed with her father in a helicopter crash on Jan. 26, 2020.
Times staff writer Chuck Schilken contributed to this report.
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