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LOS ANGELES — He towers over Star Plaza at Staples Center, this 16-foot, 1,500-pound bronze version of Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. He is shooting a sky hook, of course, and it doesn’t take a lot of imagination to believe that if set free, this frozen version would roll the ball softly off his fingertips, swishing into an unseen bronze basket.
It was always Kareem’s fate in this city to be revered, but not in the same way others have been. Magic Johnson, for instance. Wilt Chamberlain. Kobe Bryant. Even Shaquille O’Neal, nowhere near the player, was larger-than-life in his early L.