LeBron James‘ Los Angeles Lakers outfit will be slightly altered to mark the occasion when he takes the court on Monday in the city where his NBA career began in 2003.
In honor of James’ record-breaking 23rd NBA season, a patch showing a silhouette of his pregame chalk toss and three colored stripes symbolizing the teams he has played for in Cleveland, Miami, and Los Angeles will be attached to the upper right chest of his jersey.
For the final 46 games of the regular season, James will wear the patch.
The Lakers‘ equipment manager will take the patch off James’ jersey after each game, date it, and send it to Topps’ Dallas production facility for authentication before it is put into a trading card.
A similar jersey patch program was introduced by Topps, which released its first NBA-licensed cards in 16 years in October. Rookies wore a “Debut Patch” on their uniform for their first game, and the previous season’s MVP (Shai Gilgeous-Alexander), Defensive Player of the Year (Evan Mobley), and Rookie of the Year (Stephon Castle) wore a unique gold NBA logo on the back of their uniform to be featured on a trading card.
