Millions sign Vancouver teen's petition to put Kobe Bryant on NBA logo
Credit to Author: Harrison Mooney| Date: Wed, 29 Jan 2020 23:37:37 +0000
A B.C. teenager’s petition to update the National Basketball Association logo in honour of the late Kobe Bryant is approaching three million signatures in four days.
The petition, launched Sunday in the wake of tragic news that Bryant, his daughter, and seven others had perished in a helicopter crash, was created by Vancouver 16-year-old Nikyar Moghtader.
It’s one of several local tributes to the NBA legend in recent days, and part of a global outpouring of sorrow at Bryant’s untimely death. Over the weekend, B.C. Place lit up in purple and yellow as a tribute to the longtime Laker, and at Monday’s Vancouver Canucks game, singer Karen Lee Batten wore Bryant’s jersey while performing the anthems.
But no local tribute has had the reach of Moghtader’s petition pushing for Bryant to replace Jerry West on the NBA logo. The petition, averaging about a million signatures a day, has even been signed by celebrities like Justin Bieber and Snoop Dogg.
Moghtader has been stunned by the reaction. The local teen had a much more modest goal when he first pitched the idea: 100 signatures, maybe?
“When I started this petition I was just some 16-year-old kid who had just lost his role model and hero,” Moghtader said in an Instagram post Tuesday as the petition crossed two million signatures. “My initial goal was to get a mere 100 signatures. Never would I have thought for this petition to get so incredibly big.”
West already supports being replaced. The NBA insists the silhouette is no specific player, but the logo’s designer has admitted he based the figure on Jerry West — nearly three years ago, the Lakers great said that he didn’t care for that.
“I don’t like to do anything to call attention to myself, and when people say that, it’s just not who I am, period,” West said. “If they would want to change it, I wish they would. In many ways, I wish they would.”
Still, don’t expect the NBA to give in to the public pressure. Bryant would be a controversial choice for a number of reasons — let’s see which ones the league is willing to talk about.
“Sources familiar with the league’s thinking said there is no interest in having an individual player as its logo because there are so many who have been instrumental in the growth of the game and the NBA,” wrote Dan Wetzel of Yahoo Sports. “Generic is better.”
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