Wilt Chamberlain always seems to come back to the spotlight when someone breaks a record. Recently, his scoring exploits were revisited after Bam Adebayo put up an astonishing 83-point scoring performance against the Washington Wizards last spring. As a matter of fact, the Miami Heat’s star outdid basketball legend Kobe Bryant’s 81-point game. But Shams Charania of ESPN immediately reminded viewers that although Chamberlain’s legendary 100-point game was made in the 1960s, it is a record that stands the test of time. Now, 26 years after his death, Chamberlain makes the news once again but in an altogether different way.

On July 20, a warm-up jacket worn by Chamberlain during the 1972 NBA Finals was sold at an auction for $89,600. The remarkable part? It had been purchased just months earlier for $3.07 at an Oregon Goodwill by Portland teenager Quinn Brown. The story began in January. 

Brown, a regular thrift-store shopper, was digging through a bin of clothes outside the store when someone decided they didn’t want the jacket and tossed it back.

“He just threw it in front of me, and I immediately grabbed it,” Brown recalled in an interview later shared by Colin Rugg on X.

At first, Brown wasn’t sure whether the jacket had actually belonged to Wilt Chamberlain. But after doing his own research, he realized he might have stumbled upon something special. He posted photos of the find on Instagram, calling it a “once in a lifetime find.” That post changed everything. 

Sotheby’s spotted the photos online, contacted Brown, and arranged for the jacket to be auctioned. As the authentication process unfolded, excitement only grew.

Earlier this month, Complex reported that the jacket could fetch as much as $250,000. Sotheby’s authenticated it by photo-matching the garment to three separate images—one from the 1972-73 season, another from a January 1973 game, and a third from either Game 1 or Game 2 of the 1972 NBA Finals against the New York Knicks. In both Finals games, Chamberlain finished with double-digit points and multiple rebounds, further tying the jacket to one of the defining chapters of his Lakers career.

Once the authenticity was confirmed, the ending almost wrote itself. Interestingly, the price falls way short of Chamberlain’s most prized memorabilia. Fans may remember Chamberlain’s iconic 1972 NBA Finals jersey, which sold for $4.9 million at Sotheby’s in 2023. That said, the latest piece of history isn’t too shoddy.

What began as a $3.07 thrift-store purchase transformed into one of the year’s most remarkable sports memorabilia stories. And now, after changing hands at auction, Chamberlain’s iconic warm-up jacket has found a new home. 

Wilt Chamberlain’s warm-up jacket reaches a perfect destination 

The jacket’s journey didn’t end when the auction hammer came down. It has now found a home that many collectors would consider the perfect destination.

On July 20, renowned sports memorabilia collector Chase Jordan revealed on X that Wilt Chamberlain’s 1972 Lakers warm-up jacket is headed to David Kohler’s “Lakers Shrine,” a private collection dedicated to preserving some of the franchise’s most iconic pieces of history. That makes the story even more fitting. 

The collection already houses several rare Lakers artifacts linked to Chamberlain, including a black Samsonite suitcase emblazoned with the “Los Angeles Lakers” logo and fitted with a vintage United Airlines baggage tag that once belonged to the Hall of Famer during his playing days in the 1960s.

In a way, it feels like the jacket has come full circle. What began as a forgotten item in a thrift-store bin now sits alongside other personal belongings from one of basketball’s greatest legends.