The locker room the late Kobe Bryant wore from 2003-04 through his final season in 2015-16 has sold for a record $2.9 million, the auction house that brokered the sale said Friday.
According to Sotheby's, it is the most valuable piece of sports locker ever sold at auction. It is also the third-most expensive piece of Bryant memorabilia of all time, behind only a game-worn, autographed, photo-bearing jersey from Bryant's rookie season, which sold for $3.69 million in 2021, and a signed, game-worn, photo-bearing jersey from Bryant's lone MVP season in 2007-08, which sold for $5.6 million — the second-most valuable basketball jersey ever sold.
The locker was being auctioned off for $750,000, but during the final twenty minutes of the auction, four bidders pushed the sale to just under $3 million.
“Kobe Bryant's locker is not simply a piece of memorabilia,” Brahm Wachter, Sotheby's director of modern collectibles, said in a statement. “But a profound relic of one of basketball's most iconic figures. Today's price highlights not only Kobe's enduring legacy, but also the exceptional nature of this unique item.”
During the Staples Center's renovations in 2018, an anonymous maintenance worker saved Bryant's locker from demolition and sold it to a private collector, who reunited the locker with Bryant's nameplate.
Sotheby's said a portion of the proceeds from the sale will “directly benefit” the Los Angeles Lakers Youth Foundation, but did not elaborate on how much.
