The Lakers will be bedecked with their 2020 NBA championship rings ahead of the 2020-21 season opener against the Clippers tonight.
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Championship rings are a unique part of American sporting culture. All 4 major sports have ring ceremonies for their champions, in addition to giving out trophies.
These rings are given out to all members of a winning organization, traditionally. The victorious franchise gets to pick whom to give rings to. Players’ spouses also end up with rings – just as Vanessa Bryant did. The Raptors gave superfan Nav Bhatia the gift of a lifetime with his ring.
Championship rings aren’t just ornamental jewellery pieces – they are a marker of one’s team success. The amount of design work that goes into one is really high. The current contractor responsible for designing every ring since 2009 is Jason Arasheben – a celebrity in the field.
How much does an NBA championship ring cost?
The Raptors’ 2019 championship rings are the biggest in sports history. The top edition rings for players cost over $100,000 for the franchise to get made. This is in line with their resale values established by Kareem’s auction for charity recently, in which he raised nearly $3 million from the sale of his 5 Lakers rings.
The biggest ring in NBA championship history depicts the Larry O’Brien trophy over the Toronto skyline. This includes the iconic CN Tower. All rings are accentuated with custom-cut baguette diamonds – along with the team jersey logo.
Each 2019 championship ring consists of a whopping 640 precious stones embedded on it. The front face of the jewellery has 74 diamonds each – representing each win by the Raptors in 2018-19.
It has more diamonds than any other professional championship ring, the most diamond total carat weight, and the largest single diamond. These pieces are all sourced from Canada to commemorate the nation’s role.
