David Kohler has quite an impressive collection of Lakers memorabilia.
A plaster cast worn by Kobe Bryant.
The microphone used by Chick Hearn for his final broadcast.
Goggles worn by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.
The rim the ball went through when current Lakers superstar LeBron James broke the NBA’s all-time scoring record.
The latest addition to Kohler’s collection is tied to a player who has yet to play a regular-season game. It’s the jersey worn by Bronny James in his first NBA Summer League game with the Lakers on July 12, a little more than two weeks after the former USC player was drafted by his father’s team at No. 55 overall.
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“Yes, I bought that for the Lakers Shrine,” Kohler told The Times of his private collection of memorabilia.
Kohler, the founder and president of SCP Auctions in Laguna Niguel, paid $38,400 for the gold No. 9 jersey in an auction by Sotheby’s, which had initially estimated the item would receive top bids of $6,000 to $10,000.
“At the end of the day, this is all about history and people can debate what things are worth,” Kohler said. “These are historical artifacts and it’s not always about the dollars.”
Kohler was born and raised in Los Angeles and is a life-long Lakers fan. He takes great pride in his collection, which preserves numerous artifacts from the team’s days in Minnesota through the present. To him, Bronny James represents the next chapter of the Lakers’ storied history.
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James played with the Lakers in two California Classic games in early July before making his Summer League debut during a 99-80 loss to the Houston Rockets. He finished that game with eight points, five rebounds and two steals.
“To be able to get that game-worn jersey with the history of this franchise, I just thought it was very important,” Kohler said. “I just love the father-son story and all that.”
Bronny James played his first preseason game with the Lakers on Friday, a 124-107 loss to the Minnesota Timberwolves, and shared the court with his father for the first time two nights later in a 118-114 preseason loss to the Phoenix Suns. The two James men are set to become the first father-son duo to play in a regular season game.
Will items from any of those games be making their way into Kohler’s Lakers Shrine?
“You never know,” he said. “Different things that become available I might have interest in. Again, this is the history of this great franchise, so it’s been a lot of fun to be able to track down a lot of these things.”
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This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.