Kobe: Mom wasn’t given permission to sell my stuff

CAMDEN, N.J. — Kobe Bryant is playing some of his toughest defense yet, demanding his mother keeps her hands off his merchandise.

Bryant, the Los Angeles Lakers guard, said in a court filing that he never gave his mother permission to sell mementos from his high school days and early professional basketball career.

Bryant is in a court battle over whether hundreds of items — from high school jerseys to trophies and championship rings — can be auctioned off.

Pamela Bryant said the NBA star told her the memorabilia was hers. She arranged earlier this year to auction it off through Berlin, N.J.-based Goldin Auctions and received a $450,000 advance.

Last week, lawyers for the son wrote to the auction house demanding it cease the June sale. Goldin is suing to assert its right to sell.

In a filing Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Camden, Kobe Bryant says his mother acknowledged to him recently that she did not have permission to sell the items. The suit was filed there because the auction house is located in southern New Jersey.

Goldin dubbed the auction “The Bryant Collection,” and the main page of its website shows three Lower Merion uniforms from his high school days and one familiar No. 8 Lakers jersey. There’s even a surfboard from when he won a Teen Choice award among the roughly 100 items listed.

“I never told my mother that she could have my personal property, let alone consign it for public auction,” Bryant wrote in the filing.

He also posted on Twitter, “When u give Give GIVE and they take Take TAKE at wat point do u draw a line in the sand? (hash) hurtbeyondmeasure (hash) gavemenowarning (hash) love?”