It's a good thing Kobe Bryant built three statues.
The first copy immortalizing the Lakers legend was unveiled last month outside the Crypto.com arena and contains three glaring typos.
The 19-foot statue that honors Bryant's 81-point performance against the Toronto Raptors in 2006 — in which he pointed his finger at the sky — now points toward the pedestal. This is where the game score has two players' names — Raptors guard Jose Calderon and Lakers guard Von Weaver — and the word “decision” is misspelled.
The Lakers plan to fix the errors in the statue sculpted by Julie Rotblat Omrani.
“We have been aware of this for a few weeks and are already working to correct it soon,” a Lakers spokesperson said in a statement.
The box score on the Kobe Bryant statue misspelled Lakers guard Von Weaver's first name as “Vom,” and to the right of his name is the word “decision” misspelled as “decicion.”
(Myung Jae-chun/Los Angeles Times)
Calderon's last name is misspelled as “Calderson” on the statue, and Weaver's first name is spelled as “Foam.” Weaver, whose real name is Faketon Quamar Weaver, was a rookie for the Lakers during the 2005-06 season and the box score shows he did not play due to a coach's “decision.”
Calderon, who was also a rookie that season, continued to play for the Lakers during the 2016-17 season, a year after Bryant retired after 20 seasons with Los Angeles.
Nearly four years after leaving the NBA, Bryant died along with eight others in a helicopter crash on January 26, 2020, in Calabasas.
The Lakers announced in February of this year that Bryant would receive two other statues, one of him with the No. 24 jersey that he wore in his last ten seasons, and the other would be of him and his daughter Gianna, who was also killed in a helicopter crash.
