The Lakers will honour Phil Jackson with a statue outside Crypto.com Arena on April 9, 2027, a fitting tribute to a coach whose record and influence still define championship basketball in Los Angeles.
Jackson already stands alone in NBA coaching history with 11 championships, and his Lakers legacy includes five of those titles. On Tuesday, the Lakers announced they have commissioned the statue, which will be unveiled during the 2026-27 season when the Minnesota Timberwolves are in Los Angeles for the next-to-last game of the year.
A coach who changed the standard
Jeanie Buss said: “Phil Jackson defines championship basketball for a reason.” That is not just warm praise for a franchise icon. It reflects the scale of what Jackson achieved across two eras of greatness, first with the Chicago Bulls and then with the Lakers.
During the 1990s, Jackson led Michael Jordan, Scottie Pippen and the Chicago Bulls to six NBA titles. Before the 1999-2000 season, Jerry Buss hired him to coach the Lakers, and the move reset the franchise’s championship ambitions almost immediately.
From 1999-2004, Jackson coached the Lakers to three championships with Kobe Bryant and Shaquille O’Neal. From 2005-11, he added two more with Kobe Bryant and Pau Gasol. That is why the statue feels less like a surprise and more like an overdue acknowledgment of a coach who turned elite talent into sustained success.
Why the honour matters
Jeanie Buss also said Jackson’s “masterful approach to coaching brought out the best in some of the greatest athletes to ever play the game.” She added that after he accepted her father’s invitation to join the Lakers, his “unmatched creativity and commitment to excellence restored our championship legacy.”
Those words matter because the statue is not only about one coach’s trophies. It is about the way the Lakers want their history understood: through standards, results and the people who helped build both.
The team have previously honoured other figures with statues at Star Plaza, and Jackson now joins that group in a public recognition of what five Lakers championships and 11 NBA titles represent. The timing, on April 9, 2027, gives the organisation a specific moment to celebrate that history in front of the next generation of fans.
For the Lakers, the message is simple. Championship basketball has a shape, a memory and a place outside the arena. Phil Jackson will soon have all three.
