Kobe Bryant announced his retirement from the NBA on Sunday and since then there has been a lot of reflection on his career and looking forward to his final moments playing in the league. Kobe's final home game has already been sold out, people are anticipating him being in his final All-Star game, despite really not deserving it, but there are some who are looking even further into when he will have his jersey retired. For most players the jersey retirement is straight forward but it won't be for Kobe as he wore two different numbers prominently throughout his career so there is a debate about which one the Lakers should retire.
A team representative said that it is still too early for a decision to have been made but now that he has officially announced his retirement the talks about this topic will likely get more serious.
"We have had a couple very casual and preliminary conversations internally about this over the past few years. But now that Kobe has officially announced a retirement date, I anticipate we will discuss this more formally in the coming weeks and months," said the representative, according to TMZ Sports.
The debate here is an interesting one as Kobe has worn both number eight and number 24 for 10 seasons a piece and had quite a bit of success in both numbers. Kobe wore number eight for the first 10 seasons of his career from 1996-2006 and won three championships in that time span while establishing himself as one of the best players in the game.
In 2007 Kobe switched to 24 and is still wearing that number to this day. Kobe has won two championships with the number 24 and has established himself as one of the best players of all-time while never missing an All-Star game in the 10 year span (Bryant is fully expected to be an All-Star this season.)
Kobe has had his struggles at the end of his career with injuries so the argument for eight being retired might be stronger but either way the Lakers choose to go it will be hard to argue. Former Laker Rick Fox thinks that the Lakers should go against tradition and retire both of the numbers Kobe wore which is an interesting thought but it seems likely they will just choose one. This decision doesn't need to happen anytime soon but since we know for sure Kobe is retiring and there is no doubt the Lakers will retire his jersey this is certainly an interesting debate to have.
