Kobe Bryant Los Angeles Lakers 1999-2000 Worn and Signed Right Hand Cast | First Championship Season

Athlete Direct, then a division of Broadband Sports, the ESPN-partnered company that operated Bryant's official website until going out of business in March 2001.

It is accompanied by the original Athlete Direct hologram stickers numbered AD000745.

In October 1999, during a preseason game against the Washington Wizards, Kobe Bryant suffered a fracture of the fourth metacarpal bone in his right hand after being struck by an errant elbow while pursuing a rebound. X-rays taken the following morning confirmed the injury. Bryant was fitted with a cast extending to just below his elbow and ultimately missed the first 15 games of the regular season. He was 21 years old.

The injury occurred during Phil Jackson's first season as head coach of the Los Angeles Lakers. The 1999-2000 campaign would prove to be a landmark season for the franchise, as the Lakers finished 67-15 and captured the first of three consecutive NBA championships.

Offered in this lot is the cast worn by Bryant during his recovery from the injury. The cast has been signed by Bryant and authenticated by PSA/DNA. It has also been photomatched by SIA Photo Match to photographs taken on November 3, 1999, showing Bryant on the Lakers' sideline while recovering from the fractured hand.

Bryant returned to the lineup in December 1999 and helped lead the Lakers to the NBA's best regular-season record. During the 2000 NBA Finals against the Indiana Pacers, he played through a significant ankle injury, missing Game 3 before returning in Game 4 to score 28 points, including key overtime baskets in a Lakers victory that gave Los Angeles a 3-1 series lead. The Lakers went on to win the NBA championship, the first of five Bryant would capture during his career.

Photomatched to Bryant's recovery period during the opening weeks of the 1999-2000 season and signed by the future Hall of Famer, the present cast is a rare surviving artifact from the beginning of the Lakers' championship run under Phil Jackson. Dating to Bryant's first title season, it represents an important piece from the formative years of one of the most celebrated careers in basketball history.

Going Deeper | Kobe Bryant

After three consecutive Laker championships from 2000-2002, the legendary tandem of Kobe and Shaquille O'Neal was disbanded when Shaq was dealt to the Miami Heat in 2004. With Kobe firmly in the driver's seat of the Lakers offense, he quickly established himself as one of the premier scorers the game has ever seen.

Between 2005 and the end of his career, Kobe put on a plethora of jaw-dropping scoring displays: 62 points against the Mavericks, 81 points against the Raptors (3rd all-time in NBA history), 55 here, 60 there. It seemed that any night could provide NBA fans with a dominant performance, a scoring clinic.

Kobe won back-to-back scoring titles in 2005-2006 and 2006-2007 and achieved NBA League MVP honors in the 2007-2008 season, the only regular season MVP of his career. After being joined by Pau Gasol, Kobe led the Lakers to three consecutive NBA Finals appearances (2008, 2009, 2010) and two NBA championships (2009 and 2010), earning Finals MVP honors on both occasions.

Kobe ended his historic career with one last shining moment in 2016. In his final game in the NBA, a 37-year-old Bryant willed the Lakers to a come-from-behind victory, scoring 60 points and hitting the game-winning shot in the process. The performance was surreal, the perfect bow on the gift that was watching Kobe play. A nod to the basketball greats, a demonstration of a love for the game, deep-rooted and palpable.

In 2021, Kobe Bryant was posthumously inducted into the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame. The Lakers organization retired both numbers he wore during his career, 24 and 8.