NBA: KOBE BRYANT’S JERSEY FROM MVP SEASON SOLD FOR $5.8 MILLION

The Kobe Bryant Los Angeles Lakers jersey from his lone MVP season in 2007–08 brought in $5.8 million at auction on Thursday, making it the second-most expensive basketball jersey ever sold, according to auction house Sotheby’s.

After selling for almost $10 million in September at Sotheby’s, Michael Jordan’s jersey from the first game of the 1998 NBA Finals holds the record for the most expensive piece of game-worn sports memorabilia in history.
Bryant, an 18-time All-Star and five-time NBA champion, was murdered along with his daughter and seven other people in a helicopter crash in January 2020.

According to the Sotheby’s website, Bryant signed the jersey and wore it in 25 of his 82 games that season, including six playoff contests.

According to Brahm Wachter, head of streetwear and modern collectibles at Sotheby’s, “the picture of Kobe wearing this particular jersey during the NBA playoffs has infiltrated in popular culture, repeated on murals, novels, and newspapers.”

With audiences all around the world, it has “become a symbol of his ferocious resolve and devotion.”