The 41-year-old and his 13-year-old daughter Gianna were among the victims when a helicopter they were traveling in crashed in Calabasas, California, northwest of Los Angeles, on January 26.
On Tuesday evening, sport collectibles auction house Goldin Auctions revealed the score sheet from one of Bryant’s most memorable performances was going under the hammer.
According to Goldin Auctions, the document was only available to players, media reporters, employees and staff that were present at the Staples Center in Los Angeles on January 22, 2006.
The already rare memento is made even more exclusive by the fact it was personally autographed by Bryant. The auction house has confirmed the five-time NBA champion’s signature is authenticated.
Bidding started at $1,000 and at the time of writing 14 offers had been submitted, with the current bid standing at $6,000.
The auction is expected to remain open until February 23 and Goldin Auctions has committed to devolving the entire buyer’s premium—an additional charge to the winning bid levied by the auctioneer to cover administrative expenses—to the MambaOnThree Fund, which was set up to raise funds for the victims of the crash.
Singling out the best moment of Bryant’s incredible career is nigh-on impossible, but his 81-point game must surely be in the top five.
In the middle of a season that would see him average a league-best and career-best 35.4 points per game, he erupted against the Toronto Raptors, scoring 81 as the Los Angeles Lakers won 122-104 on home court.
The figure would have looked ridiculous in a video game, never mind in real life. Bryant alone scored one point more than the Raptors’ five starters combined and his tally was 68 points higher than that of his highest-scoring teammate—Smush Parker with 13.
In 42 absurdly entertaining minutes, Bryant went 28-of-46 from the field and 18-of-20 from the free-throw line, scoring a combined 55 points in the last two quarters alone, as the Lakers erased a 14-point halftime deficit.
The performance remains the second-highest point tally by a player in a single game, behind only Wilt Chamberlain’s historic 100-point game in 1962.
The feat was so remarkable that Bryant himself was left surprised by the extent of his brilliance.
“Not even in my dreams,” Bryant said after the game when asked whether he thought he’d ever score as many points in a game.
“That was something that just happened. It’s tough to explain. It’s just one of those things.
“It really hasn’t, like, set in for me. It’s about the ‘W,’ that’s why I turned it on. It turned into something special. To sit here and say I grasp what happened, that would be lying.”
