Reggio Emilia has been particularly rocked by Bryant’s sudden death but the town remains proud of just how successful their former “son” became. Such was his impact on the area, Mayor Luca Vecchi announced the square in front of the town’s Basketball Center would be named in Bryant’s honor. “This town saw him growing up in the sports world, in basketball, in NBA, globally with the awareness that for him, Reggio Emilia wasn’t a stop like any other, but a fundamental piece of his formation,” Vecchi told CNN. “When at the end of his career Kobe Bryant showed up here in Reggio Emilia, I think that has been the moment during which the entire citizenship of the town understood the genuine depths of the connection.”