Two years ago, Magic Johnson typed a message that read less like a wish and more like a prophecy. “One day, I hope you get a well-deserved and earned statue outside Crypto!” On May 14, 2026, that day arrived. The Los Angeles Sparks officially announced that Hall of Famer Lisa Leslie will be immortalized in bronze at Star Plaza outside Crypto.com Arena, with the unveiling ceremony set for September 20, 2026. And when the news broke, Magic Johnson was ready with something far more powerful than an “I told you so.”

This is more than a sports story. It is a story about what recognition looks like when it is long overdue, finally delivered, and permanently cemented into the sidewalk of a city for every child who walks by to see.

The Prophecy, Then the Announcement

On March 22, 2024, Magic Johnson posted a tribute to Lisa Leslie on social media that celebrated her entrepreneurship and her basketball legacy. The closing line would become one of the most quoted sentences in women’s basketball that year: “You took the WNBA, women’s basketball, and the city of Los Angeles to new heights. My friend, your legacy is already women’s history. One day, I hope you get a well-deserved and earned statue outside Crypto!”

More than two years later, the Los Angeles Sparks made it official. Leslie herself delivered the news on ESPN’s First Take, with a calm confidence that only someone who has carried the weight of an entire league’s credibility for a decade could project.

“I’m getting my statue at Crypto.com Arena out in Los Angeles on September 20,” Leslie said. “I will be cemented there. I’m humbled, I’m so grateful to be a role model in our city, in our community, have the ability to inspire young girls and boys, to have been the face of the WNBA, and to see where our league is today.”

When the official Sparks press release went out, Johnson’s statement made clear that his 2024 post was not just flattery. It was a conviction.

Magic Johnson’s Words, Measured and Deliberate

Johnson, who himself stands immortalized in bronze at Star Plaza, did not simply celebrate the announcement. He contextualized it.

“I’ve known Lisa for nearly three decades and believe that she is beyond deserving of this incredible honor,” Johnson said. “She was the driving force behind bringing back-to-back championships to the Los Angeles Sparks franchise in 2000 and 2001, and Lisa’s hard work and commitment has made her one of the best to ever play the game.”

Then came the line that elevated the statement above a standard tribute: “Lisa’s legacy isn’t just measured by championships and accolades, though; it’s defined by the doors she opened and the standard she set for generations to come. More than an athlete, she is a pioneer, a cultural icon and a force who elevated women’s basketball to new heights. This statue celebrates her excellence, her leadership and the future she helped create, and it ensures her impact will forever be part of the fabric of this city.”

The phrase “doors she opened” was not accidental. Magic Johnson knows exactly what Lisa Leslie walked through and what she left wide open behind her. So does anyone who was watching on July 30, 2002, when Leslie rose above the rim against the Miami Sol and, with one thunderous one-handed slam, became the first player in WNBA history to dunk in a game. That moment did not just belong to a box score. It rewired what was considered possible in women’s basketball, permanently.

The Weight of Being First

When Leslie’s statue is unveiled on September 20, 2026, it will be the 16th sculpture at Star Plaza. The plaza already holds some of the most celebrated names in sports history: Wayne Gretzky, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Shaquille O’Neal, Jerry West, Pat Riley, Oscar De La Hoya, Kobe Bryant, Gigi Bryant, Magic Johnson, and others who defined decades of Los Angeles sports culture. And yet, in the entire history of that plaza, not a single statue had ever depicted a woman.

Lisa Leslie will be the first.

That fact deserves to sit without qualification. Crypto.com Arena has hosted some of the greatest athletes in human history. The Sparks themselves have played there since 1999. Fifteen sculptures stood outside those doors before any of them honored a woman. The gap between who gets remembered in bronze and who actually shaped the games people love is not subtle here. It is structural. And Leslie’s statue, however joyfully earned, is also a correction.

She is also only the second WNBA player in history to receive a franchise statue, following Sue Bird, whose bronze likeness was unveiled outside Seattle’s Climate Pledge Arena on August 17, 2025 — a day declared “Sue Bird Day” at the city, county, and state levels across Washington. The sculptor behind Bird’s statue? Julie Rotblatt Amrany and Omri Amrany of Rotblatt Amrany Studio, the same artistic team now crafting Leslie’s likeness. Their portfolio includes Michael Jordan’s iconic The Spirit in Chicago, the Kobe and Gigi Bryant statue, the Jerry West statue, and the Pat Riley statue. Remarkably, this studio has now been entrusted with both of the first two WNBA player statues ever created.

The Numbers Behind the Bronze

There is always a risk, when talking about historical significance, of losing sight of the performance that earned it. So let the career statistics stand on their own:

  • 17.3 points per game, 9.1 rebounds per game, 2.3 blocks per game across 12 seasons and 363 games, all with the LA Sparks
  • 6,263 career points — 13th all-time in WNBA history
  • 3,307 career rebounds — 6th all-time
  • 822 career blocks — 3rd all-time
  • The Sparks’ all-time leader in points, rebounds, blocks, field goals, free throws, minutes, and games played
  • 3× WNBA MVP (2001, 2004, 2006)
  • 2× WNBA Champion (2001, 2002), named Finals MVP both times
  • 4× Olympic Gold Medalist (1996, 2000, 2004, 2008)
  • Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame inductee (2015)
  • No. 9 jersey retired by the Sparks in 2010

This is not a legacy built on sentiment. It was built game by game, block by block, and yes, dunk by dunk.

Seven Years in the Making

The statue conversation did not begin with Magic Johnson’s 2024 post. It started in September 2019, when journalist Arash Markazi first publicly called for Leslie to be honored at what was then Staples Center. Sparks managing partner Eric Holoman confirmed at the time that the team believed Leslie deserved a statue and intended to make it part of lease renewal discussions with AEG. Then the COVID-19 pandemic fractured the momentum. The arena was renamed Crypto.com Arena in 2021. Johnson’s social media post in 2024 reignited the public conversation. And in May 2026, seven years after the seed was first planted, the announcement arrived.

Leslie, who admitted in an LA Times interview that a statue had never actually been on her bucket list, offered a perspective shaped by timing and broader meaning: “It couldn’t be better with the new facility coming, the new CBA, everything is aligning so properly. It’s more perfect than it would have been a few years before.”

She is right. The 2026 WNBA season marks the league’s 30th anniversary. Leslie was among its original players in 1997. The league has surged in cultural relevance, driven by a new generation of stars. Honoring its founding pillar in its anniversary season, in the nation’s second-largest media market, carries a weight that a 2021 or 2022 unveiling could not have carried quite the same way.

Beyond the Court

One of the things Magic Johnson understood when he championed this honor was that Lisa Leslie’s story did not end when she stepped off the court in 2009. In many ways, it accelerated. She became a broadcaster across ESPN, ABC, NBC, Turner, and Fox Sports Net. She wrote an autobiography titled Don’t Let the Lipstick Fool You, a title that challenged every lazy assumption ever made about women athletes. She coached the BIG3’s Triplets to a 2019 championship and was named Coach of the Year. She earned an MBA from the University of Phoenix. She co-founded luxury real estate firm Aston Rose in 2022. And in 2026, she launched an interactive fan engagement platform, still finding new ways to build bridges between athletes and the communities they inspire.

She had also been a co-owner of the Sparks since 2011, becoming the first WNBA player to become a co-owner of a WNBA franchise. Johnson joined that ownership group in 2014. Their relationship is not just one of mutual admiration. It is one of institutional commitment to the same team, the same city, and the same belief that women’s basketball belongs at the highest level of recognition.

What September 20 Will Mean

When Lisa Leslie stands at Star Plaza on September 20, 2026, before the Sparks take on the Portland Fire, she will look up at a bronze version of herself in the company of Wayne Gretzky, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Kobe Bryant, and Magic Johnson. She will be standing in the city that raised her. She will be the first woman ever to have a statue on that plaza.

Her own words from the announcement carry the full weight of what that moment will be: “To be cemented in Los Angeles, the city that raised me, I couldn’t be more proud to be a role model forever.”

Magic Johnson did not just call this moment. He helped shape the culture that made it feel inevitable. But the statue belongs to Lisa Leslie — to the 17.3 points, the four gold medals, the one-handed dunk that changed everything, and the three decades of proving that greatness does not need anyone’s permission to be permanent.

On September 20, it will be cast in bronze. And it will stand there, for every young girl walking past Crypto.com Arena, as proof that it was always possible.