Once the Los Angeles Lakers 2015-2016 season comes to an end, they will have Kobe Bryant‘s name hanging from the rafters. However, the question remains: which number should hang, 8 or 24?
Lakers General Manager Mitch Kupchak gave the idea that the Lakers might end up retiring both jerseys.
“I don’t know the answer. Obviously it’s going to be 8, 24 or it could be both,” said Kupchak at a season ticket-holder event Sunday.
Kobe played the first half of his career wearing the number 8, winning three consecutive NBA championship titles alongside Shaquille O’neal, and in 2005, Kobe changed his number to 24, and would go on to win two more titles in 2009 and 2010, and his first and only league MVP trophy.
Reasons for why Bryant switched over to the number 24 are still unclear, though many believe it had something to do with the fact that Michael Jordan, the player Bryant has been mercilessly compared to for his entire 20-year career, who wore number 23.
Let’s not forget Kanye West‘s infamous line from T.I.‘s 2008 cut, “Swagga Like Us”: “Trying to get that Kobe number, one over Jordan.”
