Magic Johnson Gifted Shaq A Jersey BEFORE He Was A Laker | TMZ Sports

Welcome back to TMZ Sports. Memorabilia has become such a massive business. There was a Michael Jordan jersey that was sold for like $14 million. And I mean, there is really no limit to the price that sports fans will pay for some of these really iconic items. And one of the guys who is at the forefront of this industry is Ken Golden of Golden Auctions, who has had, I mean, whether it's cards or it's jerseys, He has had some of the coolest and most valuable items that you will ever see. Now, yesterday, he actually came by the TMZ offices, and he brought some really awesome stuff. There was one item that I thought was extra special, a gift from Magic Johnson to Shaquille O'Neal. This isn't any ordinary Magic Johnson jersey. he signed and inscribed this to a future Laker a very big and well-known future Laker I'm sure you're all gonna know come in around okay shaquille o'neal shaquille o'neal shaquille o'neal oh and he signed it irvin magic johnson and can you read so he writes to Shaq to the most versatile big man ever keep rapping there you go love that so there it is and so that is magic johnson who had just retired at least temporarily because of the hiv diagnosis a shaquille o'neal young guy coming out of lsu not established yet and he calls him most versatile not because he can do different things on the basketball court but because shaq was a rapper what's sad is that shaq just gave that jersey away how did kenny get a hold of this jersey Good question. It went through a couple different people. I'm not sure why Shaq ultimately let it go, but, yeah, I would have held on to that one. Oh, my gosh, yeah. This is crazy, too, and, like, the fact that, yeah, he wasn't a Laker legend yet or anything. You know, this one was, like, late in life. It was crazy. I mean, that's crazy because, I mean, I think a lot of people now know, like, Shaq is DJ Diesel. You know, he's kind of made a music career, but, I mean, not a lot of people, I feel like, knew he was a rapper back then. No, he was an actor. He was an actor. He was doing all kinds of stuff back then. Shazam? Grown-ups. I mean, that's like a crazy name. Kazam. Kazam, not Shazam, man. That's a crazy piece of history. So that was funny. He brought in some other stuff, too, and they're actually doing something pretty cool. And I think this is probably the future of the industry. They are now going to, as that is a Luka Doncic jersey that Luka actually wore for Media Day a couple weeks ago. Golden has a deal now with the Lakers where they're going to be auctioning off weekly items that Luka wore. Or Austin Reeves might have wore a jersey or a game ball from a game-winning three-pointer. Things like that. And they are going to auction those things off in real time, like that same week. So if you're a fan out there and you say, hey, I want to have the jersey Luka wore on Tuesday, like, you can now do that. And I really do think that that's probably the future of the collectibles and the memorabilia industry. So, yeah, lots of big things going on. It's just crazy some of the prices that these items are going for. And you can bet that that Magic Johnson to Shaq jersey is also worth a pretty penny.