Buy Kobe Bryant’s Lakers jersey, sweat and all
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The Rage welcomes a news dispatch from colleague and Image staff writer, Adam Tschorn:
When Game 1 of the NBA Finals gets underway in Boston tonight, the big question will be: how high can Kobe go? Not just in points scored or assists, or any other on-court statistic, but in dollars — as in how many greenbacks will it take to buy the purple No. 24 road jersey right off his back?
The man who nicknamed himself the ‘Black Mamba’ could probably keep the merchandising arm of the NBA in the black all by himself, earlier this year — long before he was crowned league MVP — his jersey was the second-bestselling in the NBA (ironically, bumped from number one by the Celtics’ Kevin Garnett) and second-best in the last decade (behind Michael Jordan).
Which should make watching the NBA.com auctions website (auctions.nba.com) tonight almost as much fun as watching the game itself, since the NBA announced yesterday that, as of tip-off, actual game-worn jerseys from active players on both teams will be up for bid.
To find out exactly how this works, we called Barry Meisel, president of the MeiGray Group in New Jersey, the company overseeing the auction. While Meisel enthusiastically prattled on about security tags they’ve sewn into the jerseys for authentication purposes, and the post-game chain of custody, our concerns were a bit more pragmatic. Like, are these jerseys washed before being shipped to the winners or are lucky Laker fans likely to end up with a malodorous Odom, a grungy Gasol or a wilted Walton? And isn’t there something creepy and downright unhygienic about buying somebody else’s gym clothes –- no matter how famous they are?
‘In most case the jerseys are washed after a game,’ Meisel said by phone. ‘If the timing of an auction is so tight that we don’t have time to launder the item, we’ll at least run it under cold water to make it a little more, you know, palatable.’ Meisel said that his company will take possession of the Laker (road) and Celtic (home) uniforms after tonight’s game and they will be laundered and securely stored until the auction ends on June 24.
Meisel declined to offer how much Bryant’s jersey might fetch, but compared it to LeBron James’ Game 3t jersey from last year’s NBA finals, which sold for $25,540. ‘And we expect Kobe’s to go for much more than that,’ he said. Since a gold home jersey worn by Bryant during one of the several ‘Hardwood Classics’ nights this season is currently bid up to $6,001 at auctions.nba.com, bidding for tonight’s Kobe-wear is sure to put a strain on the wallet, but that will probably pale compared with the price when the Lakers return to Staples for Game 3 and their home jerseys hit the auction block. If the home team is just a few wins out, the MVP’s gold No. 24 jersey might as well be 24-karat gold.
-- Adam Tschorn