Li Du had two options in his plan to deal with the sculpture. He wanted to give it either to Kobe or to O'Neal.
Of course, he could also choose to sell it. The sculpture was extraordinary and could easily fetch him a few hundred thousand.
However, that sum of money was nothing to him. He would rather use the sculpture to reconcile the two men. It was more important to build relationships than earn a small sum of money.
For example, if he managed to build a relationship with Kobe, he could equate that to bringing in a top customer for Harry Winston. For the last two years, Kobe had spent more than 200,000 US dollars on luxury items and brought in even more customers. The value of that was much higher than a one-time gain.
