After every game James plays, the patch will be removed from his jersey by the Lakers’ equipment manager, dated and then shipped to Topps’ production facility in Dallas where it will be authenticated and later inserted into a trading card.
Topps, which launched its first NBA-licensed cards in 16 years in October, introduced a similar jersey patch program with rookies wearing a “Debut Patch” on their uniform for their first game and last season’s MVP (Shai Gilgeous-Alexander), Defensive Player of the Year (Evan Mobley) and Rookie of the Year (Stephon Castle) wearing a special gold NBA logo on the back of their uniform to later be featured on a trading card.