{"id":421330,"date":"2026-08-02T02:20:23","date_gmt":"2026-08-02T02:20:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/421330\/"},"modified":"2026-08-02T02:20:23","modified_gmt":"2026-08-02T02:20:23","slug":"bidding-for-kareem-abdul-jabbar-ucla-jersey-passes-1-million","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/421330\/","title":{"rendered":"Bidding for Kareem Abdul-Jabbar UCLA jersey passes $1 million"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

A UCLA<\/a> jersey worn by Lew Alcindor<\/a> in the 1968 NCAA national championship game and the 1969 Final Four is set to garner more than $1 million at auction<\/a>. <\/p>\n

The man who has owned it for the past half century \u2014 a former Los Angeles resident who was a huge fan of the player now known as Kareem Abdul-Jabbar<\/a> \u2014 didn\u2019t have to pay nearly as much for the historic piece. <\/p>\n

In fact, he paid no money at all. Instead, he traded for it after a Lakers<\/a> game in the Forum<\/a> parking lot back sometime in the mid- to late-1970s, giving up one of his prized possessions as a teenager living in South Gate:<\/p>\n

His transistor radio.<\/p>\n

\u201cI used to listen to Dodger<\/a> games on it under my pillow,\u201d said the auction\u2019s consignor, a man named David who asked to have his last name withheld because of privacy concerns.<\/p>\n

Back then, David and some friends would often take the bus to the Forum, where they would try to convince fans to give them their extra tickets to attend the Lakers game that night. Afterward, they would wait in the parking lot for players to leave the building.<\/p>\n

\"An <\/p>\n

A UCLA jersey, worn by Lew Alcindor during the 1968 national championship game and a 1969 national semifinal, is up for bid at Grey Flannel Auctions.<\/p>\n

(Grey Flannel Auctions)<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were young and crazy. We waited till the players came out and kind of talked to them,\u201d said David, who says he once walked with Wilt Chamberlain to his car. \u201cAnd there were other kids there. We would trade stuff, and that is basically how I got the jersey.\u201d<\/p>\n

By then, Abdul-Jabbar was a star with the Lakers, after winning three NCAA titles under legendary UCLA coach John Wooden<\/a> and leading the Milwaukee Bucks to an NBA championship in 1971. <\/p>\n

The young man who brought the No. 33 Bruins jersey to the game that night was looking to have it signed by Abdul-Jabbar. He was actually a USC<\/a> fan though, David said, so the trade was fairly easy to pull off.<\/p>\n

\u201cBack then, transistor radios were real popular,\u201d David said.<\/p>\n

Over the decades, he mostly kept the jersey stored away neatly, occasionally pulling it out for a look or to show others. Recently, David said, he was \u201cjust cleaning things out\u201d and decided it was time to part ways with the cherished item.<\/p>\n

\u201cI said, you know, someone else will really enjoy this,\u201d David said. \u201cAnd they\u2019ll display it, and people can enjoy it more than I will stuck in some kind of storage thing.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to Michael Russek, director of operations for Grey Flannel Auctions, David didn\u2019t know a lot about the jersey\u2019s history when he first brought it in, only that it was issued by UCLA and had likely been worn by Alcindor in some game at some point.<\/p>\n

Photo-matching revealed that he had worn it in several games, including some very significant ones. He wore it while scoring 34 points with 16 rebounds in UCLA\u2019s 78-55 victory over North Carolina in the 1968 national championship game<\/a> and also during multiple games the following season, including the Bruins\u2019 85-82 victory over Drake in a national semifinal game (Alcindor had 25 points and 21 rebounds).<\/p>\n

\"UCLA's <\/p>\n

UCLA\u2019s Lew Alcindor steals the ball and dribbles away from a group of North Carolina players<\/p>\n

(Harold Filan \/ Associated Press)<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s when it really started to come together that we have something that\u2019s truly special,\u201d Russek said.<\/p>\n

As of Friday morning, bidding had reached $850,101, with a 22% buyer\u2019s premium bringing the price to nearly $1.04 million. The auction ends Aug. 16.<\/p>\n

David said he was \u201cvery surprised at how it took off so quick. I\u2019m not familiar with these kind of auctions or jerseys, really. But there\u2019s a lot of alumni from UCLA down there, and a lot of people would like something like that.\u201d<\/p>\n

The current Oregon resident added that he hasn\u2019t thought about what he\u2019s going to do with all that cash.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not the kind of person who does plans for money until I have it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A UCLA jersey worn by Lew Alcindor in the 1968 NCAA national championship game and the 1969 Final…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":421331,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[39405,168273,9631,20807,6195,48,52,51,80223,168272,47,50,49,1741,1555,1869,9442,1417,4201,168271,8934],"class_list":["post-421330","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-auction","tag-bruins-jersey","tag-david","tag-dodger-game","tag-kind","tag-la","tag-la-headlines","tag-la-news","tag-lakers-game","tag-lew-alcindor","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-headlines","tag-los-angeles-news","tag-lot","tag-man","tag-night","tag-player","tag-point","tag-radio","tag-ucla-jersey","tag-victory"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/421330","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=421330"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/421330\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/421331"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=421330"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=421330"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=421330"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}