“If the Staples Center was ‘The House that Kobe Built’ then this was his room inside that house, a remarkable and intimate artifact that lived Kobe’s career with him,” Brahm Wachter, Sotheby’s Head of Modern Collectables, told The Sporting Tribune. The item, according to Sotheby’s, “was discovered in 2018, during renovations of the Staples Center, when the entirety of the Lakers locker room was set to be discarded. As demolition was happening, a vigilant maintenance worker recognized the significance of Kobe’s locker and saved it from disposal. After years in storage, the maintenance worker sold the basketball icon’s locker to an American collector in a private transaction. The same American collector already owned Kobe’s original locker nameplate, thus reuniting these two pieces to complete the set.” Bryant’s Staples Center locker will be sold at Sotheby’s on July 31, with an estimate of around $1.5 million. A portion of the proceeds will go to the Los Angeles Lakers Youth Foundation. -via The Sporting Tribune / July 22, 2024
