In the wake of the tragic passing of NBA legend Kobe Bryant and his daughter Gianna, a petition has begun which seeks to change the NBA logo to that of Kobe Bryant.
Kobe Bryant and his 13-year-old daughter Gianna, also known as GiGi, were en route to a basketball game at Bryant’s Mamba Academy, when their Sikorsky s-76 helicopter crashed. All nine people aboard were killed.
The current NBA logo is that of the man who helped orchestrate the move to bring Bryant to Los Angeles, Laker legend Jerry West.
West expressed profound sorrow upon hearing of Bryant’s passing in a Sunday television interview.
“To hear this news this morning, frankly, at first I was shocked,” West said via Fox 11 in Los Angeles. “I really felt like a surrogate father to him … this has been one of the most horrible days of our life.
“The thing that I will share with you is how, to me, the maturity I saw him grow into, I saw him deal with press that was negative at times because he played the game with a flair, and anytime you play the game with a flair you’re susceptible to making mistakes. I was his biggest supporter but I had some very serious talks with him.”
The Change.org petition began with a goal of 300,000 signatures. As of the time of this writing, the petition had greatly surpassed that goal, totaling over 663,000 signatures. In light of that success, a revised goal of 1,000,000 signatures was set.
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