Karl Malone reportedly makes $5 million & $3 million by auctioning 1992 Dream Team memorabilia & Michael Jordan jersey
Karl Malone earned himself a hefty payday for parting ways with some memorabilia from the 1992 Olympic Dream Team. To date, the Dream Team remains one of the most notable teams in the history of USA Basketball.
After the event, Malone received a signed jersey from Michael Jordan, which also reads, "To Karl, good luck." The jersey ended up selling for over $3 million at the auction this week, however, no information regarding the buyer was provided.
While it could have been a private collector, it could also have simply been a wealthy superfan. In addition to the jersey, Malone also put up other pieces of memorabilia, in total earning him a whopping $5 million.
During his time in the NBA, Malone reportedly made a whopping $105 million. As someone who played into the 2000s, he was able to secure some big paydays. During his final years with the Jazz, Malone earned $14 million in 1999-00, $15.75 million in 2000-01, $17.5 million in 2001-02, and $19.2 million in 2002-03.
However, there's no word as to what prompted Karl Malone to part ways with all the memorabilia, given that he had made in excess of $100 million in his career.
Karl Malone isn't the only Dream Team member parting ways with memorabilia
As it turns out, Karl Malone isn't the only member of the Dream Team to part ways with his memorabilia. Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, Hall of Famer Charles Barkley was set to auction off quite a bit of his own memorabilia for charity.
Now, after discussing things with his daughter, Barkley is planning to go through with his plan to auction memorabilia for charity. During an episode of the Dan Patrick Show, he said:
"I'm selling all my memorabilia to be underprivileged houses in my hometown. I was supposed to do it before the pandemic because stuff like that don't matter to me. But my daughter, I asked her, what she wanted. She said 'I'll take one of the gold medals,' The rest of this crap I'm going to sell for underprivileged houses in my hometown."
Barkley continued:
"Dude all that stuff is just clutter to me Dan, everybody know I won MVP, everybody know I won gold medals. Dude let me tell you something, I'm 60 years old Dan, if people come to the house and I say 'hey let's go look at my MVP trophy and look at my gold medal,' Hey I'm the biggest damn loser in the world."
Although Karl Malone didn't auction his memorabilia off for charity, the precedent set by the $5 million he earned is a great sign for Barkley.
(Suggested Reading: Karl Malone's infamous advice to Charles Barkley)