LOS ANGELES (CBSLA) – Brooklyn Nets star Kyrie Irving wants to see the NBA put late Lakers legend Kobe Bryant on the logo for the league.
FILE — Lakers star Kobe Bryant shakes hands with Jerry West during a ceremony at Staples Center to honor Kobe’s record for most points by a Laker. Feb. 3, 2010. (Wally Skalij/Los Angeles Times/Getty Images)
On Wednesday, Irving posted an image to his Instagram page of Kobe superimposed over the NBA’s logo.
“He was the standard for our generation, and he will continue on,” Irving told reporters Thursday night following the Nets win over the Orlando Magic.
The current silhouette on the NBA logo is of another former Lakers legend, Jerry West, who was the Lakers general manager in 1996 and was responsible for drafting Kobe out of high school.
Following Bryant’s death, West told CBSLA that he felt like he had “lost a son.” And back in 2017, West said that he wished the league would change the logo.
A Change.org petition calling on making Bryant the logo has so far garnered 3.2 million signatures.
“Present day, it’s 2/24, only a year after the memorial, and it’s just a refresher that this is the guy for us, he’s the guy for me, he’s my mentor, more than just an inspiration,” Irving said. “I took a lot of knowledge and wisdom from that guy. He’s always around me, Gigi’s always around me. I know that in the women’s game we want to push things. But in our game too, we want to stand a standard and precedent: this is excellence, Kobe Bryant logo, yes, needs to happen, I don’t care what anyone says, Black kings built the league.”
On the morning of Jan. 26, 2020, a Sikorsky S-76B helicopter carrying Kobe Bryant, his 13-year-old daughter Gianna and seven others crashed in Calabasas amid heavy fog. It had departed from John Wayne Airport in Orange County and was bound for Camarillo, with the passengers on board heading to Kobe’s Mamba Sports Academy in Thousand Oaks, where Kobe was set to coach Gianna in a tournament game.
Earlier this month, the National Transportation Safety Board determined that the pilot was likely at fault for the crash.
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