Kobe Bryant announced that he will retire at the end of this season and since then his goodbye tour has been in full swing.  Each city usually does something special for the upcoming retiree; the Sixers held a homecoming ceremony for Bryant and Atlanta has decided to honor him in another way.

With the Hawks playing the Lakers on Friday night, the squad announced it teamed up with Zoo Atlanta to pay tribute to Kobe by naming a real live snake “Kobe” after the NBA star.

Yes they’re naming a real black mamba snake Kobe, in honor of his Black Mamba nickname.

The zoo even issued a statement saying, “Mr. Bryant is a legend on the court, and the black mamba is a legend in the wild.”

The bad news according to TMZ Sports is, the snake will NOT travel to the game because it’s not allowed to travel.

Might be something to do with that whole deadly venomous poison thing.

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