A Kobe Bryant Jersey From a $20,000 Lakers Lot Sold for $1.83 Million

The signed, game-worn No. 8, photo-matched to a 16-1 run of games, first left the team as half of a two-jersey charity lot.

On Kobe Bryant's jersey retirement night in December 2017, a bidder at a Lakers charity auction paid $20,000 for two of his signed jerseys, Sports Illustrated reported. On Sunday, one of them sold by itself for $1.83 million.

It's a game-worn, autographed No. 8 from the 2003-2004 season, and it sold through The Realest, an authentication and auction platform, USA Today reported Monday. The Realest's own listing shows a final price of $1,830,000. According to USA Today, no Bryant No. 8 from outside his rookie year has sold for more, and it's one of the five priciest Bryant NBA jerseys sold at public auction.

The sale also landed in the middle of a familiar Kobe argument. In a clip HoopsHype posted Tuesday, former Lakers and Clippers guard Patrick Beverley said, "Kobe Bryant wasn't really efficient, he shot a ton of shots, but he still got it done when he needs to get it done." He said it while arguing that Luka Doncic's playoff numbers are close to Michael Jordan's.

The money bought a very good spring of Kobe. Photo-matching by The Realest puts the jersey on Bryant for 17 games. The Lakers lost one, and none of the eight that came in the playoffs.

Sports Illustrated reported that it's the jersey from his season high, 45 points against the Golden State Warriors on April 13, 2004. It was on his back again for 42 points in Game 4 of the West semifinals against the San Antonio Spurs.

Its last documented game was May 31, 2004, the win over the Minnesota Timberwolves that sent the Lakers to the Finals. It also has an NBA Finals patch sewn on, and no other Bryant No. 8 that's come up for auction has had one. But USA Today reported that nobody could prove he wore it in that series, which the Lakers lost to the Detroit Pistons in five games.

That 2017 lot came from the Lakers Youth Foundation's arena auction and paired the No. 8 with a signed, team-issued No. 24. Sports Illustrated put Sunday's price at 91.5 times what the pair cost.

In January 2020, Bryant and his daughter Gianna, 13, were killed when their helicopter went down. The jersey stayed with its one owner the whole time, until Sunday, USA Today reported.

The house sold it as a relic of the season Bryant later named as the origin of his Black Mamba persona, according to Bleacher Report, which quoted the listing. That's a legacy price, and it still sits well below the top of the Kobe market. His jersey from his 1996 NBA debut sold for $7 million in April 2025, according to USA Today, and even a baseball jersey the same house sold last month went higher: Shohei Ohtani's from the 2025 Tokyo Series, for $2,055,700.

Somebody just paid $1.83 million for 17 games of the second half of Beverley's sentence.

Source: USA Today, retrieved November 10, 2026. Other sources: si.com, The Realest's auction listing, hoopshype.com, bleacherreport.com, Wikipedia.