A piece of Kobe’s final game court cost more than many sports cars
Watching Kobe Bryant score 60 points in his final NBA game was a priceless experience. Owning a physical piece of the Los Angeles Lakers legend’s final performance on an NBA court, though? There is, in fact, a price tag on that, and it was miiiiiiiiiighty steep:
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From Darren Rovell of ESPN.com:
A piece of the Staples Center game floor specially made for Kobe Bryant’s last game sold for $179,100. […]
A spokesperson for the NBA, which conducted the auction online on behalf of the Lakers Youth Foundation, said the buyer wanted to remain anonymous.
Naturally. As anyone who has spent any time on the Basketball Internet knows, if there’s one thing Kobe fans hate, it’s calling attention to how much they like Kobe. (Personally, I really hope the buyer was the Black Mamba himself. Those panels would really make a nice accent to the decor at the Kobe Inc. offices, don’t you think?)
As souvenirs from the final game of Bryant’s illustrious 20-year career go, it’s kind of hard to argue with how rad this one is. I mean, if you couldn’t cop one of those diamond-and-gold retirement rings the Lakers gave Kobe and his wife Vanessa, or buy the actual smile Kobe coaxed out of Kanye, getting an autographed chunk of the deck on which he stunned the Utah Jazz with an absurd and perfect 50-shot performance is a pretty good consolation prize, even for the low-low of just under $180K, which also could have netted you, say, a McLaren 540C or a Porsche 911 Turbo Cabriolet. Maybe not as great as the final two gifts Bryant bequeathed to the Lakers — a $1.2 million sayonara merch-sale windfall and, thanks to a farewell tour full of losin’, the No. 2 overall pick in the 2016 NBA draft — but still pretty good, all things considered.
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Dan Devine is an editor for Ball Don’t Lie on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter!
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