Kobe Bryant went from Lower Merion High School, outside Philadelphia, to the NBA draft in June 1996. Charlotte took him thirteenth and traded him to the Lakers for Vlade Divac, a deal agreed before the draft and completed in July. On November 3, 1996, he played his first game, at eighteen years and seventy-two days.
Topps's flagship set that season ran to 221 cards in two series, and Kobe is #138. Later the same season Topps issued Topps Chrome, a chromium version of the same design, and the Chrome #138 became the more famous card. This is the original: the same number, the same design, on ordinary card stock, in the packs everyone opened.
The Chrome became the famous one. This is the card it was copied from.
It is a game photograph inside a white border: Kobe in the Lakers' gold home jersey, number 8, rising with the ball held above his head as a Minnesota player reaches in, his name in gray letters along the bottom.
There is no short print here and no serial number. The one thing to watch for is the NBA at 50 parallel, whose foil finish looks enough like chromium that sellers sometimes put the word Chrome in its listings.
He averaged 7.6 points in 71 games that first season, won the Slam Dunk Contest in Cleveland, and in May, in the fifth game of a playoff series in Utah, shot four airballs in a loss that ended the Lakers' season. He went on to win five championships.
