{"id":88682,"date":"2024-08-04T08:29:26","date_gmt":"2024-08-04T12:29:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/?p=88682"},"modified":"2024-08-04T08:29:26","modified_gmt":"2024-08-04T12:29:26","slug":"nba-legends-locker-sold-for-millions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2024\/08\/04\/nba-legends-locker-sold-for-millions\/","title":{"rendered":"NBA Legend&#8217;s Locker Sold for Millions"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Even when an NBA legend dies, their legacy still lives on. Iconic moments from their career, photos, stories from teammates, and memorabilia are all ways the story of a player is told. Today, an unusual piece of memorabilia carrying on a story was sold at an auction: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/b\/bryanko01.html?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2024-08-03_bbr\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Kobe Bryant<\/a>&#8216;s locker from Staple Center, the final bid totaling $2.9 million.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">The home locker that Kobe Bryant used has sold for a record-setting $2.9 million, the auction house that brokered the sale said Friday.<\/p>\n<p>According to Sotheby&#8217;s, it&#8217;s the most valuable sports locker to ever sell at auction. <a  href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/t0YylbVnIG\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">https:\/\/t.co\/t0YylbVnIG<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 ESPN (@espn) <a  href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/espn\/status\/1819556384247107589?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">August 3, 2024<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<h2>NBA Legend&#8217;s Locker Sold for Millions<\/h2>\n<p>At face value, it seems ludicrous for any person to spend so much money on a sports locker. The locker itself is nice, but it&#8217;s not anything special either. What makes it worth almost $3 million is the fact that Bryant used this locker from the 2003-04 season through his last with the Lakers.<\/p>\n<p>Bryant&#8217;s locker wasn&#8217;t expected to sell for as much as it did. While the locker&#8217;s value was always high, the highest bid with about 20 minutes left in the auction was $750,000. However, four bidders then pushed the value up to just under $3 million before time expired. The expensive price tag makes it the most valuable sports locker sold, and the third most valuable Bryant memorabilia piece. The two pieces more <a href=\"https:\/\/abc30.com\/post\/kobe-bryants-staples-center-locker-fetches-record-29m-auction\/15137879\/#:~:text=It&#039;s%20also%20the%20third%2Dmost,08%2C%20which%20sold%20for%20%245.6\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">valuable<\/a> are game-worn, autographed Bryant jerseys from his rookie season and his 2007-08 MVP campaign.<\/p>\n<p>While the locker isn&#8217;t able to tell stories, it&#8217;s lived through some of the most electric parts of Bryant&#8217;s career. He started using the locker as the Lakers were attempting to assemble a superteam with <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/m\/malonka01.html?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2024-08-03_bbr\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Karl Malone<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/search\/search.fcgi?pid=paytoga01,paytoga02&amp;search=Gary+Payton&amp;utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2024-08-03_bbr\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Gary Payton<\/a>. Notably, this was also the last year Kobe played with <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/o\/onealsh01.html?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2024-08-03_bbr\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Shaquille O&#8217;Neal.<\/a>\u00a0It would later see Bryant play solo for a while. Bryant averaged an absurd amount of points in the mid-2000s. Including a 35.4 ppg season in 2005-06 and his iconic <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=o9NILK4OXpo\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">81-point<\/a> game in the same season.<\/p>\n<p>Bryant&#8217;s locker was there when he teamed up with <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/g\/gasolpa01.html?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2024-08-03_bbr\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Pau Gasol<\/a> and won back-to-back championships. It was there when Bryant formed another superteam with <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/h\/howardw01.html?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2024-08-03_bbr\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Dwight Howard<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/n\/nashst01.html?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2024-08-03_bbr\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Steve Nash<\/a>. And, it was there before the final game of his career, when he dropped <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=GTJwoWHMEw0\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">60 points<\/a> in a win against the Utah Jazz. The locker is living history.<\/p>\n<h3>Bryant&#8217;s Locker and Legacy<\/h3>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">The newly-unveiled Kobe Bryant and Gianna Bryant statue outside of <a  href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/rqCpumuUGv\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">https:\/\/t.co\/rqCpumuUGv<\/a> Arena: <a  href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/HDh4IFlbAl\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">pic.twitter.com\/HDh4IFlbAl<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Khobi Price (@khobi_price) <a  href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/khobi_price\/status\/1819502601970635192?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">August 2, 2024<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><br \/>\nThe locker isn&#8217;t the only way Bryant will be remembered by the public. Aside from the many memories he made with teammates, NBA fans across the globe, and many people he met, a statue has just been unveiled of Bryant and his daughter, Gianna. The statue is on display outside of Crypto.com arena\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/2021\/01\/26\/remembering-kobe-bryant\/\" target=\"_self\">and shows the two embracing.<\/a>  The last statue of Bryant unveiled proved to be a bit of a disaster, with names misspelled on the box score of players in Bryant&#8217;s 81-point game. This one was received much better, however, showing Bryant&#8217;s love for his family and commitment to women&#8217;s sports.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Even when an NBA legend dies, their legacy still lives on. Iconic moments from their career, photos, stories from teammates, and memorabilia are all ways the story of a player is told. Today, an unusual piece of memorabilia carrying on a story was sold at an auction: Kobe Bryant&#8216;s locker from Staple Center, the final [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5154,"featured_media":88825,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"1","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[26,1608,62],"tags":[551],"class_list":["post-88682","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lakers","category-basketball","category-nba","tag-kobe-bryant"],"modified_by":"Eamon Cassels, Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88682","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5154"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=88682"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88682\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/88825"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=88682"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=88682"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=88682"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}