1) James Naismith’s founding rules of basketball

On January 15, 1892, the Springfield College school newspaper published Naismith’s original 13 rules of basketball and a new sport was born. Almost 120 years later, the Naismith family announced that the original two-page manuscript would be going up for auction, with the proceeds going to charity. For one University of Kansas super fan named Josh Swade, this was a twist of fate, an opportunity for the document to “come home” to the school’s campus. Just a few years after inventing the sport, Naismith had brought it to Kansas, where he acted as the school’s first head coach for nine years before turning over the reins to his protege Phog Allen and transitioning into a de facto athletic director role. To Swade, this meant that Lawrence, Kansas was the rightful home of the manuscript and he started a seemingly quixotic quest to make that happen. Swade found two crucial allies in Allen’s grandson Mark and in Kansas alumnus David Booth, the latter of which spent $4.3 million to win the auction for the document. To put that in perspective, the same auction event included Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. spending less money ($3.7 million) on a signed copy of the Emancipation Proclamation. Whether or not you believe it’s the “rightful home,” the original rules of basketball now reside at the DeBruce Center on the Kansas campus, as part of an exhibition about Naismith.

2) Toaster signed by Klay Thompson

At a Warriors autograph event in March of 2017, Thompson got an unusual request. A fan named Ronnie Reyes handed him a black toaster, emblazoned with the Warriors logo and already covered in signatures of many of Thompson’s Golden State teammates. Thompson’s bemused reaction to the autograph ask went viral on the internet but what happened next is the really incredible part. Following that event and Reyes’ subsequent internet posting regarding it, the Warriors went on to win 31 of their final 33 games to earn the NBA title. Granted, most of that success can be attributed to the all-timer roster featuring the newly added Kevin Durant alongside Thompson and Stephen Curry. But the toaster became a viral sensation all the same, culminating in Reyes becoming a minor Bay Area celebrity and being invited to participate in the team’s championship parade. The toaster, which also features autographs from Draymond Green and Steve Kerr amongst other Warriors luminaries (though notably not Curry) now resides in Reyes’ kitchen closet.

3) Michael Jordan’s 1998 NBA Finals jersey
4) Michael Jordan’s #12 jersey
5) Michael Jordan McDonald’s BBQ sauce

It’s unsurprising that Jordan’s pre-eminent status in basketball history also extends to the world of memorabilia, with holy relics ranging from the standard to the bizarre. Sales of his various game worn jerseys have created headlines over the years, culminating in a 2023 purchase that broke records. It was a jersey worn by Jordan during game one of the 1998 NBA Finals, a contest the Bulls lost but the series ended with his sixth and final title. With ’90s Bulls nostalgia running high in the wake of The Last Dance documentary, the jersey sold for $10.1 million. That set the new high mark for jersey sales, not just in basketball but in any sport, eclipsing a $9.3 million purchase of Diego Maradona’s “Hand of God” jersey. While that Finals jersey is certainly iconic, there’s a much cheaper option out there that is arguably as big of a conversation starter. Right before tip-off of a Bulls road game in Orlando during the ’89-’90 season, Jordan realized his #23 jersey had been stolen and the Bulls had inexplicably failed to bring a back-up. Jordan thus suited up in a generic #12 jersey with no name on the back. The temporary number change certainly didn’t affect Jordan, who finished with 49 points. But the sartorial chaos perhaps threw off his teammates, as the Bulls lost 135-129 to a Magic team otherwise floundering in its inaugural season. The #12 jersey has been sold numerous times over the years, and the most recent asking price was $15,000.

But if you’re looking for an even more outlandish piece of Jordan memorabilia, can I interest you in a jug of barbecue sauce that expired over 30 years ago? For a brief period in the ’90s, McDonald’s sold a specialty burger in the Chicagoland area called the McJordan. It was the traditional quarter pounder with cheese, appended with bacon, pickles, onions, mustard, cheese, and barbecue sauce. An unused, gallon sized jug of that sauce was in the possession of a former McDonald’s franchisee, who considered it likely worthless. But a 2012 online auction fetched him an incredible $10,000. We can only hope the purchaser intends to only display the sauce, not to taste test it.

6) Adam Morrison’s bloody gauze pad

His NBA career was pedestrian but Morrison was a megastar in college, especially in the state of Washington. So much so that fans were willing to pay for his blood and mucus as a souvenir. In the ’05-’06 season, Morrison led the NCAA in scoring, shared Player of the Year honors with JJ Redick, and carried Gonzaga to a 27-3 record. During a late season victory over Pepperdine, Morrison’s nose began gushing blood after taking an inadvertant elbow. He shoved a gauze pad up his nasal cavity and continued playing, eventually discarding it on the court under the basket. That’s where a fan claims he picked up the bloody dressing and a few days later put it up for sale on eBay. Despite any evidence of authenticity, the bids got up to over $60 before Gonzaga University stepped in, forcing the seller to shut it down due to NCAA rules (the current NIL regulations were still a pipe dream at that point). The current status of this disgusting piece of memorabilia is unknown but Morrison himself chimed in on the incident years later, citing it as evidence of the detriments of his celebrity status.

7) Kobe Bryant’s NBA championship ring
8) Metta World Peace’s NBA championship ring

Nobody can cite for sure how many authentic NBA championship rings are floating out there in auctions, pawn shops, and private collections. But we do know the prices of purchase for fans have risen exponentially over the last few years. Take for example the legendary Oscar Robertson, who sold his 1971 championship ring for $60,000 in 2018. One year later, his Bucks teammate Kareem Abdul-Jabbar put four of his six title rings up for sale and netted nearly $400,000 for the 1987 Lakers edition. Kareem donated most of the proceeds to his Skyhook Foundation for at-risk youth, continuing a lifetime of charitable work. World Peace made a similar move after winning a championship with the Lakers in 2010 but did so in an appropriately unique manner. Rather than auction off his ring to the highest bidder, World Peace made it the prize in a raffle, where everyday fans had a chance (albeit an extremely slim one) to win an authentic, one-of-a-kind piece of memorabilia. The raffle ultimately raised over $650,000, most of which World Peace donated to youth mental health programs in his native New York City. The five rings of his Lakers teammate Kobe are in private possession of the Bryant family but a specialty ring gifted to his father Joe recently set a sales record. Despite their often rocky relationship, Kobe had commissioned an exact replica of his first title ring (won in 2000) for his father. Joe sold the ring in 2013 for $173,000, which turned out to be a great investment for that buyer (whose identity is unknown). The new owner then put the ring back up for sale in 2024 and fetched $927,000, a new high mark for NBA championship jewelry. That record had previously been held by Bill Russell’s 1957 ring, which the Celtics legend auctioned off for $705,000 in 2021 to raise money for a youth mentorship program. The winner of that auction is also unknown but is rumored to be Shaquille O’Neal, who openly declared his interest multiple times on Inside the NBA leading up to the auction.

9) Panini National Treasures 2009 Stephen Curry Logoman Autograph Rookie Card

The most prized and romanticized trading card in sports history can attribute much of its status to its age and scarcity. The Honus Wagner T206 was first issued in 1909 and it’s generally believed that less than 200 of the cards were produced. It’s since became an indelible relic of baseball and Americana, so much so that one authentic version is on display at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. The T206 has fetched as much as $6.6 million in auctions, an amount eclipsed only by another glamorized memento, a 1952 Topps Mickey Mantle. But the priciest trading card in basketball history has a much different story, one more entwined with the realities of 21st century American capitalism. In 2009, the trading card company Panini took over sole licensing for NBA cards and issued a specialty card for then rookie Stephen Curry as part of its new National Treasures line. The autographed “Logoman” card was a 1:1, meaning that only one instance was ever printed. This scarcity led to a hefty, record-setting selling price of $5.9 million in 2021, transferring hands from a private collection to an investment firm called Alt. Launched in 2020, Alt calls itself a “alternative asset platform” specializing in trading cards, morphing a beloved hobby into bloodless investment opportunities. The $5.9 million price tag is the third highest of all time amongst all sports cards, behind only the T206 Honus Wagner and the 1952 Mickey Mantle. It also broke the record for NBA cards, which had previously been held by a 2003 LeBron James autographed rookie card.

10) Wilt Chamberlain’s 100 point game ball

The most quintessential individual performance in basketball history took place at a neutral site in a midsize Pennsylvania town with 4,000 people in attendance and no video evidence. Chamberlain’s 100 point game set the standard for NBA scoring possibly forever but Chamberlain himself seemed nonchalant about it. The iconic picture from the game is Chamberlain, barely smiling, in the locker room holding up a piece of paper with “100” written on it. If you’re wondering why he’s not holding the game ball, well that’s a crazy story. As the final buzzer sounded, fans stormed the court to congratulate Chamberlain on his record setting performance. One of the first on the scene was 14-year-old Hershey resident Kerry Ryman, who had the foresight to grab the game ball and run, supposedly all the way home with security guards and other fans chasing him (in a scene eerily reminiscent of the prologue of the Dom DeLillo novel Underworld). Guilt soon after set in for Ryman, who attempted on multiple occasions to donate the ball to Chamberlain but the legendary center turned it down each time. After Wilt passed away in 1999, Ryman sold the ball in an auction for around $500,000 and that’s where the real controversy begins. Enter Harvey Pollack, a legendary statistician who scored the official box score for the 100 point game. Pollack came forward and claimed that when Chamberlain scored his 100th point with under a minute left to play, that ball was set aside with a Warriors employee and Ryman’s ball was a replacement for the final 46 seconds. The original sale (which was reportedly to Spike Lee) was nullified and Ryman’s ball was auctioned off again, this time fetching only $67,000 from auction winner Marty Appel, a notable sports memorabilia collector. As for the game ball that Chamberlain actually used to score 100 points, Pollack claims it was signed by “The Stilt” and put on display at the Warriors’ executive offices’ before eventually “disappearing.” Its current location is still a mystery to this day, maybe the most interesting missing piece of sports memorabilia in the world.