If you were considering getting into the highly-lucrative business of basketball trading cards then now would be the time. Well, you might be a tad late on the action at this point, actually. This craze (I am now hesitant to label this as such) has become so big that card prices have fetched insanely huge amounts. Case in point: an extremely rare rookie card of Los Angeles Lakers legend Kobe Bryant is now being auctioned for well over $1 million.

A 1996-97 Topps Chrome Refractors #138 Kobe Bryant Rookie Card is currently on sale via Goldin Auctions, the leading marketplace for collectibles and trading cards. Initially priced at $250,000, the card has now received no less than 18 bids as of writing. Currently, the top bidder has placed a $1,010,000 bid on the item, officially making this the most expensive Kobe Bryant card ever. The kicker? There are still 11 days before the auction ends so this extremely valuable piece of memorabilia is likely to further increase in value in the coming days.

In case you were interested in joining in on the action — assuming of course, that you have an extra million dollars lying around — then you can track the auction on this link. Even if you had no intention of making a bid, I'm pretty sure you'd like to take a peek at the card at this point.

In case you needed further proof as to just how immense the trading cards game is right now, then perhaps you'd be interested to know that just recently, a couple of Michael Jordan and Patrick Mahomes cards combined to shatter all-time records in a recent $33 million auction.