Inside look at new NBA Kobe Bryant All-Star Game MVP trophy
LOS ANGELES — Later this month in Cleveland, one of the NBA’s best players will hold the All-Star Game MVP trophy above his head, presumably to loud applause from a sold-out crowd.
But that trophy’s journey to its festive, nationally televised payoff began two miles east of downtown Los Angeles, inside an unremarkable strip-mall workshop that is surrounded by an imposing chain-link fence that stands taller than Yao Ming. Visitors must walk through a pair of locked doors to find Victor Solomon, a hoops-obsessed artist who has spent the past two years reimagining the NBA’s trophies with a rigorous creative process that has transformed his pencil sketches into two-dimensional schematics, three-dimensional models and, finally, fully-cut trophies.
The gleaming fruits of those labors were made public Thursday, when the NBA unveiled a new collection of awards that will be presented during All-Star Weekend, headlined by a fully redesigned Kobe Bryant All-Star Game MVP trophy. In addition to the Bryant trophy, which pays homage to the Los Angeles Lakers legend with its design touches, the NBA revealed new rings to be given to each all-star; new trophies for the slam dunk contest, the three-point contest, the skills challenge and the celebrity game; and new medals for the winners of the Rising Stars Challenge.
“The NBA trophies, to this point, have been all over the place and lackluster in my opinion,” said Solomon, who works with the league as a licensee. “We basically threw everything out and started from scratch. Part of my interest in evolving the trophies was to create something more symbolic of the boldness and creativity of the players who are winning these awards. These guys are some of the most thoughtful and aesthetically focused people in the world, and we were giving them some afterthought, off-the-shelf trophy.”
For decades, the All-Star Game MVP trophy has paled in comparison to the NBA’s most coveted awards, such as the Larry O’Brien championship trophy and the Bill Russell Finals MVP honor. Early versions of the All-Star Game MVP trophy, dating from the 1950s and 1960s, featured everything from a player figurine atop a large cup to a tiered wooden design with a player dunking atop a gold basketball. By 1969, the trophy was a simple gold basketball atop a wooden base, but gaudy trophies that incorporated multiple player statues returned in the 1970s. The NBA switched to smaller, handheld trophies bearing the league’s logo in the early 1980s.
In 1986, the NBA turned to a clear disk design that lasted until 2021, with only subtle updates and modifications along the way. The most recent version bore a colorized version of the NBA logo atop a black base. The old trophy — which was given to Bryant, Michael Jordan, Shaquille O’Neal, Tim Duncan, LeBron James and Kevin Durant, among other A-listers — could be mistaken for a suburban car dealership’s salesman of the month award.
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The new Kobe Bryant Trophy stands 31 inches tall, weighs approximately 15 pounds and features countless tributes to Bryant and the All-Star Game’s history. The trophy’s black base is composed of eight sides to represent Bryant’s early-career jersey number and the event’s eight decades of history. There are 18 stars along the base, one for each of Bryant’s all-star selections, and a “Cleveland 2022” logo is etched into the base’s underside.
Atop the base sits an ascending, four-tier, crystal-like trophy that evokes a champagne bottle or the Burj Khalifa in Dubai. The first tier bears 24 stars, representing Bryant’s late-career jersey number and the 24 players who will appear in the midseason showcase. The second tier is topped with 10 stars, representing Bryant’s USA Basketball jersey number and the game’s 10 starters. The third tier has five stars, nodding to Bryant’s five titles and the standard five-man basketball team. Finally, the fourth tier rises into a single star, representing Bryant’s 2008 MVP award and the All-Star Game’s top performer.
The NBA decided to revamp its all-star trophies following the recent launches of the NBA 2K League, for professional video game players, and the Basketball Africa League. As the NBA’s on-court brand partnership team crafted logos and trophies for those new efforts, it realized the all-star trophies were a mishmash of plates, balls, statues and spheres. The league’s decision-makers wanted to avoid strict uniformity like the Oscars, but they sought a more consistent and modern look for the various event awards.
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While Solomon had been making the case for an overhaul since 2018, the NBA took him up on the concept in 2019 and eventually eyed the 2021-22 season, its 75th-anniversary campaign, as a natural time for implementation. Commissioner Adam Silver’s decision to rename the All-Star Game MVP trophy in Bryant’s honor in 2020 further spurred on the effort. Bryant, who died at 41 in a helicopter crash, won the award four times, tying Bob Pettit for the most in league history.
“Our 75th season is a good time to bookend things by respecting the past and looking to the future,” said Christopher Arena, the head of the NBA’s on-court and brand partnerships team, who declined to reveal the cost of the trophy redesigns or the price of the Bryant trophy. “We’re spending more than we did last year. We’ve invested the time, creative energy and the money that is deserving of the time and energy the players put into trying to win these things.”
In an era of digital collectibles and non-fungible tokens, Arena’s group and Solomon shared a desire to craft tangible, eye-catching and permanent markers of achievement. The new slam dunk contest, three-point contest and skills challenge trophies feature a 24-karat gold basketball suspended in a clear column, and the new All-Star Game rings mimic a basketball’s seam with a crystal ball inside.
“Until the dunk contest starts happening in the metaverse, the focus should be completely on something physical,” Solomon said. “Something in a blockchain wallet will never compete with this thing sitting on your mantle. The guy who has this on his mantel earned it, and that makes it really special. You can’t finesse your way into a championship or an All-Star Game MVP.”
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Solomon, a lifelong Boston Celtics fan who rose to prominence in NBA circles with his “Literally Balling” luxury stained-glass backboards, hopes the new Bryant trophy will carry the NBA until its 100th-anniversary season. The 40-year-old artist said he drew inspiration from Bryant’s innovative and unapologetic playing style and that the final product was approved by Bryant’s widow, Vanessa, who will receive a copy of the trophy. Silver and members of the National Basketball Players Association’s executive committee also signed off on the new designs.
“I love everything this trophy represents,” Vanessa Bryant wrote on Instagram. “All of my husband’s hard work and dedication. Mamba Mentality.”
There are no obvious hints about additional trophy redesigns inside Solomon’s secure workshop, but the NBA commissioned Tiffany & Co. to produce new versions of the Walter Brown Trophy in 2010. The Lakers, Celtics, New York Knicks, Milwaukee Bucks, Golden State Warriors and Sacramento Kings received copies of the cup-style trophy to acknowledge titles won by those franchises before the Larry O’Brien Trophy’s 1977 unveiling.
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With the NBA expending so much time, effort and resources on recognizing its history, champions and all-star event winners, it’s only natural to wonder whether the Larry O’Brien Trophy and the major year-end award trophies will soon be getting their own updates.
“Once we get past all-star, we’ll start to talk to everybody about what’s happening next,” Arena said coyly.
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