A jersey photo-matched to seven games in Kobe Bryant’s 1996-97 rookie season for the Los Angeles Lakers — including his preseason debut on Oct. 16, 1996; his regular-season debut on Nov. 3, 1996; and his NBA media day — sold for $7 million at Sotheby’s on Thursday. The jersey last sold for $115,242 at auction in 2012.
It set a new record for any Bryant sports collectible, eclipsing the $5,849,700 spent on a game-worn, signed jersey from the 2007-08 season in which Bryant won his lone MVP award.
Debut games are truly one-of-a-kind moments in an athlete’s career,” said Brahm Wachter, Sotheby’s head of modern collectibles, in a statement. “They mark the nascency of an extraordinary journey, and for iconic athletes like Kobe Bryant, these milestones hold even more significance as they represent a singular moment in time that can never be replicated.”
The $7 million Bryant jersey is the fourth-most-expensive game-worn sports jersey of all time behind the $24 million Babe Ruth “called shot” jersey, Michael Jordan’s $10.1 million “Last Dance” jersey and Diego Maradona’s $9.3 million “Hand of God” Argentina jersey from the 1986 FIFA World Cup.
Bryant went 0-1 from the field with 0 points, 1 rebound and 1 block in 6 minutes, 22 seconds off the bench in his regular-season NBA debut, but was an All-Star and runner-up for Sixth Man of the Year the following season, averaging 15.4 points, 3.1 rebounds, 2.5 assists and 0.9 steals.
Sotheby’s has brokered the five most expensive game-worn NBA jersey sales of all time: Jordan’s $10.1 million “Last Dance” jersey; the $7 million Bryant debut jersey sold Thursday; the $5.8 million Bryant MVP season jersey; a $4.9 million Wilt Chamberlain jersey worn in the 1972 NBA Finals, the Lakers’ first title run; and a jersey Jordan wore in 17 Chicago Bulls games during the 1996-97 NBA season that sold for $4.7 million in November.
