Sotheby's is auctioning Michael Jordan's Stefanel jersey

The Air Jordan 1 "Shatterd Backboard" are inspired by a specific moment in Michael Jordan's career. It is August 25, 1985 and Nike's world tour stops at the Palasport in Trieste, for a match between the Stefanel Trieste of the rookie coach Puglisi and the Juve Caserta of coach Tanjevic. By agreement, Michael should have played for both of them (once per team), but in the end he played for Trieste the whole game. He will close with 41 points in the final 113-112, but the cult episode is an MJ counterattack closed with a dunk so powerful it shattered the backboard. The shoes he was wearing at the time were sold at Christie's for $ 615,000, but now another memorabilia from that historic evening will be auctioned off.

Sotheby's received the orange-black # 23 jersey that Michael wore that night 35 years ago directly from the Stefanel family and will be auctioned until December 3. Triste's shirt jealously guarded by Carlo Stefanel and then passed to his heirs is signed by MJ and is one of the rare tangible testimonies of that match. The value of the shirt, according to initial estimates, is between 300,000 and 500,000 dollars. It will not be the only relic that Sotheby's will auction. Along with the shirt there will also be two pairs of Air Jordans, the 1 in the "Chicago" colorway and the 11 "Bred" (both with the words "Best Wishes, Michael Jordan").

An anecdote that makes the whole story particularly romantic concerns the consequences of the dunk that destroyed the basket. When Jordan took down the iron of the sports hall, the myriad of splinters that came down did damage to a couple of players, but miraculously not to Michael - who was still covered by an insurance of 15 billion lire. Michael's left shoe blocked some dangerous shrapnel, almost as if those Air Jordan 1s had saved the best basketball player of all time from the worst.