{"id":884840,"date":"2026-09-08T20:24:12","date_gmt":"2026-09-08T20:24:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/884840\/"},"modified":"2026-09-08T20:24:12","modified_gmt":"2026-09-08T20:24:12","slug":"lakers-announce-phil-jackson-statue-to-be-unveiled-in-april-2027","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/884840\/","title":{"rendered":"Lakers announce Phil Jackson statue to be unveiled in April 2027"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-2318935\" class=\"size-full wp-image-2318935\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/GettyImages-101603980.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1080\"  \/><\/p>\n<p id=\"caption-attachment-2318935\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Phil Jackson led the Lakers to seven NBA Finals appearances and five championships.<\/p>\n<p>(AP) \u2014 The Los Angeles Lakers will unveil a statue of former coach Phil Jackson outside their downtown arena next year.<\/p>\n<p>The Lakers <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nba.com\/lakers\/news\/lakers-announce-phil-jackson-statue\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">announced the plan<\/a> Tuesday to honor Jackson, who led the Lakers to five championships and seven NBA Finals appearances during two stints totaling 11 seasons as their head coach.<\/p>\n<p>The statue will be unveiled April 9 before the Lakers\u2019 home game against Minnesota.<\/p>\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">This season, we honor Phil Jackson the legend, Champion, and Laker<\/p>\n<p>Get your tickets to the game here: <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/yIHKo8QqnF\" rel=\"nofollow\">https:\/\/t.co\/yIHKo8QqnF<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/RqofTiqDsg\" rel=\"nofollow\">pic.twitter.com\/RqofTiqDsg<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Los Angeles Lakers (@Lakers) <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/Lakers\/status\/2097401620648866190?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" rel=\"nofollow\">September 8, 2026<\/a><\/p>\n<p>After his famed tenure leading Michael Jordan\u2019s Chicago Bulls to six championships, Jackson joined the Lakers in 1999 and immediately began another era of major success for the 17-time NBA champion franchise.<\/p>\n<p>His first three teams in Los Angeles won championships behind the dynamic duo of Kobe Bryant and Shaquille O\u2019Neal, and the Lakers added two more titles in 2009 and 2010 led by Bryant and Pau Gasol. His Lakers also made the NBA Finals in 2004 and 2008.<\/p>\n<p>Jackson set the Lakers franchise record for coaches with 610 victories while leading his teams to the playoffs in every year of his tenure, which ended in 2011.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cPhil Jackson defines championship basketball for a reason,\u201d Lakers governor Jeanie Buss said in a statement. \u201cHis masterful approach to coaching brought out the best in some of the greatest athletes to ever play the game. After he accepted my dad\u2019s invitation to join the Lakers, Phil\u2019s unmatched creativity and commitment to excellence restored our championship legacy, bringing five titles and setting a 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.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Jackson will be the ninth person associated with the Lakers to be honored with a statue in Star Plaza outside their arena. He joins Magic Johnson, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Jerry West, Elgin Baylor, Bryant, O\u2019Neal, broadcaster Chick Hearn and former coach Pat Riley, whose statue was unveiled earlier this year.<\/p>\n<p>Jackson\u2019s 11 championships as a head coach are the most in NBA history. The North Dakota native and former New York Knicks forward is a member of the Basketball Hall of Fame.<\/p>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Phil Jackson led the Lakers to seven NBA Finals appearances and five championships. (AP) \u2014 The Los Angeles&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":884841,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[557],"tags":[64,63,2873,454625,590,454624,85],"class_list":["post-884840","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-lakers","tag-lakers-statues","tag-nba","tag-phil-jackson-statue","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/884840","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=884840"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/884840\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/884841"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=884840"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=884840"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=884840"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}