The LA Lakers recently honored their greatest hero ever, Kobe Bryant. The Black Mamba’s first of three statues were unveiled at a ceremony attended by basketball royalty. Kobe’s first statue captures his pose while walking out of the court after scoring a historic 81 points in the game.

Needless to say, the event was attended by his dear brother Pau Gasol. The Lakers legend was at the ceremony with his wife and posted a heartfelt message for Kobe’s wife Vanessa after the event.

Gasol quoted Stu Lantz’s words from the event where he praised Vanessa for holding it all down for Kobe while he was out there conquering the basketball world. Gasol posted a picture of himself with his wife, standing in front of the Kobe statue with the caption, “So many emotions yesterday. Such a beautiful unveiling ceremony! I’m so proud of you brother. #MAMBAFOREVER 💜💛 “ The NBA veteran recalled Lantz’s quote for Vanessa. Lantz corrected the old phrase that behind every great man there’s a great woman with, “Beside every great man, there’s a great woman.” Gasol co-signed the sentiment with, “Nothing could be more true, Vanessa ❤️” 

There were a lot of other heartwarming messages that poured in for Kobe from his ex-teammates, friends, fans, and the entire basketball community.

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Shaquille O’Neal details his rise to greatness alongside Kobe Bryant

Shaquille O’Neal recently talked about his dear friend and detailed how they became legends for the franchise together. Shaq said that initially, he never thought he would get a statue of himself at the Lakers’ house. He said, “No. I didn’t even think I would get one and the reason why was in order to be a Lakers legend, you have to be consistently great and me and Kob knew we weren’t Lakers great in the beginning. When I came there, I was really good and he was just good. And then we both eventually became pretty good.”

Shaq said that Phil Jackson’s guidance helped them both go from being good players to being great players. “Then when Phil [Jackson] came [in as coach in 1999,] that’s when s— started to change. Then we won one, two and three championships and then my statue happened,” Shaq added. The Big Man got his statue in 2017. In the interview, Shaq said that the media and pundits fueled Kobe to win championships without him and he went on to win one more than Big Diesel.

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