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[Saba Sports News] President Donald Trump has announced plans to honor the late Kobe Bryant with a statue in The National Garden of American Heroes, a proposed sculpture garden dedicated to celebrating notable American figures.
Speaking from the East Room of the White House on Thursday during a Black History Month event, Trump revealed that Bryant, the Los Angeles Lakers legend, will be among those commemorated. The initiative was originally introduced during Trump’s first term in 2020, and he confirmed that final site selections are currently underway.
“We’re picking the final sites now,” Trump said, according to 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 will be honored alongside other legendary Black figures such as Jackie Robinson, Muhammad Ali, Martin Luther King Jr., Frederick Douglass, Harriet Tubman, and Rosa Parks, among others.
Bryant, a five-time NBA champion and 18-time All-Star, tragically passed away in January 2020 in a helicopter crash that also claimed the lives of his 13-year-old daughter Gianna and seven others.
The Lakers have already honored Bryant with statues outside Crypto.com Arena—though the first version required corrections due to spelling errors.
A second statue, featuring both Kobe and Gianna, was unveiled later that year. Now, the two-time Finals MVP is set to receive another tribute, this time on a national scale.