A mural in downtown Los Angeles shows Kobe Bryant and his daughter Gianna. The people who made the popular basketball video game said they would protect it for at least another year.

The people who made NBA2K stepped in when a local business owner and the owner of the building where the painting is drawn got into a fight over what would happen to it. 

The picture is on the outside of the gym Hardcore Fitness, which is located at 400 W. Pico Blvd. in Downtown LA. People who owned the building were said to want to paint over it, but Cecilia Moran, who rents the space and owns Hardcore Fitness, and Ronnie Singh, who works as a digital marketing manager for NBA2K, didn’t agree. 

The picture was saved by Moran after she heard that her landlord was going to put ads on the wall instead. That painting cost Moran more than $2,000 to make, but she let artist Louie Palsino paint it for free. 

Singh told everyone that NBA2K gave the mural’s owner money to help protect it.

Singh said, “Being a part of saving this thing is just a celebration of basketball and something that means so much to us as a video game.”

In celebration of the mural’s new spot, NBA2K held an event on Thursday. One of the nine people who died in the January 2020 chopper crash was Kobe. They have angel wings and a glow around their heads in the picture. 

There is a petition on change.org to save the picture, and more than 90,000 people have signed it so far. Bryant, who is married, talked about the plea in an Instagram story in September. 

The Lakers play at Crypto.com Arena, which is only a few blocks away from Hardcore Fitness.