In addition to being the NBAâs all-time leading scorer, a multi-time NBA champion, and three-time Olympic gold medalist, LeBron James recently achieved the highest honor of all. Okay, maybe thatâs slight hyperbole, but the news is very cool: The Laker great is now the first professional athlete to be depicted in Ken-doll form.
You read that right: For $75, you can snag a Kenbassadors doll in King Jamesâs likeness. Mattel captures all the finer details here: Heâs dressed in a fly varsity jacket signed âLJ,â Nike Terminator High sneakers, and Beats headphones. However, the detail weâre most concerned with is on LeKenâs wrist, where there is a design extremely similar to that of Audemars Piguetâs yellow-gold Royal Oak Offshore. Sweeeeeet. (A rep for Audemars Piguet didnât immediately respond to a request for comment.)
Think about that for a sec: Thirty years ago, vintage Rolex Daytonas were trading for a few hundred bucks. Fifteen years ago, a new crop of blogs gave pedantic geeks a place to yell at one another about extinct Swiss watch companies with names like Universal Genève and Nivada Grenchen. Ten years ago, you could buy a vintage Tudor Submariner for like $4K. (Maybe less!) Today? Watches are so ubiquitous, so culturally important, so touchstone-y that LeBron Jamesâs Ken doll comes with a miniature depiction of one on his wrist. Thatâs quite the journey.
Ken-Jamesâs gold watch appears to be a miniature version of the Royal Oak Offshore, which makes sense given the manâs AP affinity. The hooperâs been snapped in a huge variety of the iconic model over the years. He owns rare gem-set Royal Oaks, Offshore Chronograph Tourbillons, and special 50th-anniversary pieces. And while a single real yellow-gold ROO will run you a cool six figures, you could conceivably buy at least 1,300 miniature Mattel versions for the same price! (We canât guarantee theyâll fit on your wrist, however.) Conceived of by watch designer Emmanuel Gueit and launched in 1993, the Royal Oak Offshore was meant to be a larger, more masculine version of the brandâs Royal Oak. As the story goes, Gérald Genta, the man behind the original Royal Oak, absolutely hated it, but associations with famous evangelists such as Jay-Z, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and James have made the model nearly as famous as its 1972 forebear.