Tributes to Bryant by his friends, fans and former teammates poured out on social media on Wednesday. So I wanted to come out of respect and I thought this statue is beautiful.” “And then it popped up on my phone and we didn’t believe it. We live close and we could hear the helicopter,” she said. Nicole Szuch-Dinets of Woodland Hills was one of the dozens of fans who made the trip to pay their respects. His daughter was 13 at the time of the crash. People would come up and they would leave with some sort of satisfaction.”Ī five-time NBA champion in his 20 seasons with the Los Angeles Lakers, Bryant’s death at age 41 shocked the world of professional sports and sent his legions of fans into mourning.īryant, who lived in the area for most of his life often used helicopters to beat Los Angeles’s heavy traffic, and on the day of the crash was taking Gianna to play in a basketball game at his academy outside the city. “Today was special because I witnessed a lot of that. “On this day, the second anniversary of the accident, I decided to bring it up from sunrise to sunset and create a bit of a healing process for fans,” he said. Sculptor Dan Medina said he hoped the statue could help Bryant’s many fans. It also includes an inscription of Bryant’s famous quote: “Heroes come and go, but legends are forever.” Engraved on the statue’s steel pedestal are the names of all nine victims of the crash, which occurred early in the morning on 26 January 2020, amid foggy weather.
