Jordan backboard, hoop from '98 NBA Finals sells at auction

While basketball fans were reminiscing Thursday about the time Michael Jordan shattered a backboard in Italy, a backboard he left in one piece was up for auction.

The backboard, hoop, net, and stand from the last game of the 1998 NBA Finals was auctioned off by Heritage Auctions at the National Sports Collectors Convention in Chicago, selling for $41,825.

The hoop is from the Delta Center, where Jordan and the Chicago Bulls won the 1998 championship with an 87-86 Game 6 victory over the host Utah Jazz. That game saw Jordan hit a Finals-clinching bucket with 5.2 seconds to play, the final shot the legend would take until 2001 thanks to his second retirement.

Jordan finished the game - the most-watched contest in NBA history with 72 million U.S. viewers - with 45 points, winning his sixth NBA championship and his sixth NBA Finals MVP award in the process.

Also selling at the auction was a 1952 Mickey Mantle Topps card, which fetched $382,400, and a number of other cool - and expensive - pieces of memorabilia.