Michael Jordan Once Gifted His Shoes to a Ball Boy. Then, Things Got Really Messy.
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A former ball boy for the Utah Jazz was gifted two different pairs of Air Jordans worn and signed by Michael Jordan himself.
Each pair fetched six figures when the ball boy put them up for auction, but the shoes later proved to be worth much more.
Now the former owner is suing the auction house he sold them through, claiming he was threatened and pressured to sell them for far less than they were worth
You don't need to go see the new movie Air to know that Air Jordan sneakers are something special. (But you should. It rules.) Every new edition is swiftly bought up by avid collectors, often called sneakerheads. Vintage pairs in good condition can double, triple, and even quadruple in value. And game-worn Jordans? They can go for thousands, hundreds of thousands, even millions on the auction block. Especially if they were game-worn by their namesake player, Michael Jordan.
It's fair to say that for most of us, owning a pair of Air Jordans owned by, and signed by, Michael Jordan himself would be the kind of thing we would take with us to the grave. (Possibly into the grave itself. Tell the mortician to pop on the size 13 sneakers and just pad them out with tissues or something.) Especially if we were lucky enough to have not just one, but two different pairs of game-worn Jordans from Michael, from both the 1997 and 1998 NBA finals, the former being the famous "Flu Game."
But listen, everybody's lives are different, and sometimes you have to part with some precious items. That was the decision that Preston Truman, a former ball boy for the Utah Jazz, recently made. But now, he appears to have come to regret how it all went down, suing the auction house he trusted to handle it.
When Truman worked for the Jazz, according to a report on Sportskeeda, Jordan gifted him the pair of Air Jordan XIII Breds he had worn for Game 2 of the 1998 NBA Finals, when the Bulls beat the Jazz 93-88, 37 points of which came from Jordan himself. Jordan also, according to the article, gave Truman Air Jordan XIIs he wore during Game 5 of the 1997 NBA Finals, the famous "flu game."
Truman sold both pairs through an auction house called Grey Flannel Auctions for what were ultimately staggeringly low prices. In the case of the signed Air Jordan XIII Breds, which can be seen above, Truman sold the shoes for merely $215,000. While that may not seem like a sum to be laughed at on the surface, those same exact shoes were resold at auction at Sotheby's for a record $2.2 million, the most ever paid for a pair of shoes.
Now, Truman is suing Grey Flannel Auctions, claiming he only sold the shoes for such a low cost because of threats, high-pressure tactics, and manipulation from the auction house. Truman's core allegation is that:
"...an unnamed overseas private buyer came to Truman with an offer for his 1998 game-worn XIII shoes. The offer was $215,000, nonnegotiable and the buyer gave Truman a three-hour limit to accept the offer. Truman attempted to back out of the deal after agreeing to it and was allegedly threatened, saying that the deal was final and that these were “people not to be messed with."
Now, unless these claims are properly investigated, who can really say what happened? It could be that there really was an overseas private buyer making legit threats on behalf of a nefarious interest. It could also be that the auction house being sued really did maliciously take advantage of a guy's "lack of knowledge of the market" to defraud him with a fake foreign buyer. And it could also be entirely possible that Truman simply saw the shoes sell for far more than he paid for them, and regrets not holding out for more.
We can't know for sure, and as there's a lawsuit involved, we're certainly not going to draw any conclusions now. All this author can say is, if it's true, I'm sorry. And if it's fake, I get it. My guy, if I fumbled a bag that hard to the tune of $2 million, you better believe I'm gonna start talking about getting approached by mysterious, nefarious overseas buyers like I was in the damned Maltese Falcon. So I get it.
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