The Los Angeles Lakers will add a ninth statue to Star Plaza outside Crypto.com Arena next spring when they unveil a statue of legendary coach Phil Jackson in a ceremony prior to their April 9, 2027, game against the Minnesota Timberwolves. "Phil Jackson defines championship basketball for a reason," said Lakers governor Jeanie Buss. "His masterful approach to coaching brought out the best in some of the greatest athletes to ever play the game.
After he accepted my dad's invitation to join the Lakers, Phil's unmatched creativity and commitment to excellence restored our championship legacy, bringing five titles and setting the standard of excellence for generations to come. It is a great joy to be able to mark that achievement with the statue he so richly deserves." Jackson coached the Lakers for 11 seasons and went 610-292 in the regular season and 118-63 in the playoffs. The Lakers made the playoffs in each of his 11 seasons as coach, reaching the NBA Finals seven times and winning five championships -- including the NBA's last three-peat from 2000-02.
Jackson, 80, was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 2007 and won six other titles as coach of the Chicago Bulls. Jackson's statue will join the eight current Lakers figures immortalized outside the arena -- Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Elgin Baylor, Kobe Bryant, Chick Hearn, Magic Johnson, Shaquille O'Neal, Pat Riley and Jerry West. Bryant and O'Neal are the two players most synonymous with the Jackson era, and Jackson's most recent public appearances at a Lakers game came for the statue ceremonies for both.
Jackson's statue announcement comes at a fascinating time for the Lakers, as they are in the midst of another franchise sale -- this time to Josh Kushner and Bob Iger -- in which the internal Buss family drama is spilling out in the form of a legal battle between the siblings over selling their stake in the team and removing Jeanie Buss as the team's governor. Jeanie Buss is disputing that sale in court, and her name being attached to the lone quote in the Lakers' release about the statue is notable. It remains to be seen whether Buss will still be part of the ownership group by the time the April 9 ceremony takes place, when the statue of Jackson, her former fiancé, will be added alongside those of other Laker legends.
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