An anonymous buyer just spent a record amount of money to win the auction for the shirt worn by rookie Victor Wembanyama four weeks ago for the San Antonio Spurs.

A first-round pick in the 2023 NBA Draft, rookie Victor Wembanyama is one of the most notable and appealing young talents of the past two decades.

Many experts consider the tall French player to be a once-in-a-lifetime talent, similar to LeBron James when he arrived in the NBA in the early 2000s.

Knowing that Wembanyama has great appeal, no one thought that he would soon get a jersey worth hundreds of thousands of dollars after only playing in the NBA for less than a month.

According to famous auction house Sotheby’s, they have just successfully sold the jersey worn by Victor Wembanyama in his official debut in the NBA on October 25.

Far exceeding expectations of a price range of $80-120k, this shirt sold for up to $762,000 to an anonymous buyer.

In the history of auctions for NBA-related souvenirs, no player has ever had a jersey sold at this price while still playing. It should be noted that Victor Wembanyama has only officially debuted in the NBA less than a month ago.

Sotheby’s confirmed that this is one of the two shirts worn by Wemby in the “debut” match, specifically in the 3rd and 4th rounds. In the first half of the match, he wore a different shirt.

Because the buyer’s identity is currently kept hidden, the online community has begun to discuss why someone would spend such a large amount of money to buy a Victor Wembanayama shirt. Maybe this person is a collector, or maybe an investment group spending money to buy shirts with the aim of reselling them at a higher value in the future.

Many people lean towards the latter when Wembanyama can completely reach the level of a superstar, even a legend in the Hall of Fame. Then the resale value of a special item like this will be much greater.

Looking back at Victor Wembanyama’s “debut” in the NBA, where he scored 15 points with 5 rebounds, 2 assists and 2 steals against the Dallas Mavericks

Victor Wembanyama has not been able to break the shirt auction record of the late legend Kobe Bryant

The number of $762,000 is extremely large, but it cannot surpass the record for a rookie season jersey currently held by Kobe Bryant. A buyer spent $3.69 million to own the shirt Bryant wore in his rookie season (1996-97).

This is a very special item because it is the only photo-matched shirt that Kobe wore to play. At that time, photo authentication was not as easy as it is in today’s modern era.

It should be noted that the value of items related to Kobe has increased many times after he unfortunately passed away in a helicopter crash in early 2020.

The record for the value of a jersey worn in a rookie season belongs to Kobe Bryant with 3.69 million USD, also the only shirt authenticated by photo-match from the 1996-season. 97