A pair of sneakers worn by Michael Jordan in the 1998 NBA Finals sold for $2.2 million at auction

A pair of slippers he was wearing Michael Jordan in a meeting of the famous “The Last Dance” season in 1998, he was sold by $2.2 million in an online auction, a record for this type of sporting goods, auction house Sotheby’s announced Tuesday.

These are the Air Jordan 13 that the basketball star wore in the second game of the 1998 NBA Final of the famous season of “The Last Dance”, reports the auction house, which ensures that they are one of the “most significant items of his celebrated career and his last year with the Chicago Bulls”.

The sale underlined the award-winning player’s appeal to collectors and investors worldwide. Last September, Sotheby’s sold a jersey Jordan wore in the first game of that 1998 final to $10.1 millionsetting a world record for any sporting goods worn in a match.

Until then, the record was held by the shirt he wore Diego Maradona during the 1986 World Cup, for which they were paid $9.3 million a few months earlier, in May 2022, followed by another from the basketball legend Kobe Bryant awarded in $5.8 million last February.

The Last Dance

Jordan wore these black shoes with red motifs in the second half of the historic finale of a season that established him as the best basketball player of all time and went down in history as “The Last Dance”, thanks in large part to the hit ESPN and the Netflix documentary of the same name.

Released in 2020, it chronicled the efforts of the Chicago Bulls of Jordan to conquer andthe sixth NBA title in the 1997-1998 season.

For the auction house it is “perhaps the most beloved period of Jordanian folklore”, as it has reached “the peak of its popularity And power overcoming major internal divisions that were fracturing the Chicago Bulls team dynamic of the late 1990s.”

The players knew the roster would be disbanded at the end of the season and knew it was their last chance to win the Bulls’ sixth championship of the decade, he recalls.

After losing the first game, in the second game Jordan scored 37 points to give the Bulls a victory against the Utah Jazz (93-88).

The sale, which began April 3, coincides with the premiere of the film “Air,” which chronicles Nike’s rise in athletic shoes through its association with Michael Jordan in the mid-1980s and the genesis of the famous Air Jordans shoes.

Since Sotheby’s inaugurated the auctions of these objects in 2019, with the sale of a pair of Nike Waffles for $437,500 — an auction record at the time –, the auction house owned by the French telecommunications tycoon- Israeli Patrick Dragonsbetting on the streetwear and modern collecting market.

Last year, he organized the online sale of 200 pairs of Louis Vuitton and Nike Air Force 1s designed by Virgil Abloh before his death, grossing $25 million.

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