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Dan HajduckyDec 12, 2025, 01:32 PM ET<\/p>\n
Close<\/a>Dan Hajducky is a staff writer for ESPN. He has an MFA in creative writing from Fairfield University and played on the men’s soccer teams at Fordham and Southern Connecticut State universities.<\/p>\n Championship-clinching basketballs from the 2000 NBA Finals – Kobe Bryant<\/a> and Shaquille O’Neal<\/a>‘s first title together and the Lakers’ first title since 1988 – and the 2001 NBA Finals, the second in the Lakers’ three-peat, sold for $508,000 and $317,500 respectively at Sotheby’s.<\/p>\n The balls are both signed by at least a dozen Lakers — the 2000 ball is signed by both Bryant and O’Neal, while the 2001 ball is signed by just Bryant. Both balls include photo-matching letters from companies MeiGray and Sports Investors Authentication, as well as letters from Professional Sports Authenticator verifying authenticity of the signatures.<\/p>\n The $508,000 paid for the 2000 Finals ball is the most ever paid for a championship-clinching ball, per Sotheby’s. The previous record belonged to the ball from the 2025 NBA Finals, the Oklahoma City Thunder<\/a>‘s first post-relocation title, which sold for $107,950 at Sotheby’s in July.<\/p>\n In the same auction, a pair of game-worn and signed Michael Jordan<\/a> “Air Ship” sneakers from his rookie season, worn on December 2, 1984 — Jordan’s first matchup with Magic Johnson<\/a>, a 113-112 Bulls victory — sold for $698,500. A complete set of six Chicago Bulls<\/a> title rings, owned by longtime Bulls security guard John Capps, pulled in $406,400 and Shohei Ohtani’s signed jersey from 2024 Jackie Robinson Day brought in $330,200.<\/p>\n The Jordan sneakers include photo-matching letters from MeiGray and SIA, as well as an authentication letter from PSA on Jordan’s signature.<\/p>\n The rings feature Capps name on the side, while the Ohtani jersey features stickers from MeiGray and MLB Authenticated, as well as Fanatics regarding the veracity of the signature.<\/p>\n The shirt Rory McIlroy wore while clinching his 2011 US Open victory also sold for $146,050, a record paid for a piece of McIlroy memorabilia at auction.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Dan HajduckyDec 12, 2025, 01:32 PM ET CloseDan Hajducky is a staff writer for ESPN. He has an…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":344900,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[64],"tags":[355,99],"class_list":{"0":"post-344899","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nba","8":"tag-nba","9":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/344899","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=344899"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/344899\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/344900"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=344899"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=344899"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=344899"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Basketballs from the Los Angeles Lakers’ legendary 2000 and 2001 championships, both signed by Kobe Bryant and one signed by Shaquille O’Neal, have sold at Sotheby’s auction house for $508,000 and $317,500 respectively\u00a0Nathaniel S. Butler\/NBAE via Getty Images<\/p>\n