It’s more than just Jordans. eBay’s strongest tie to basketball is not documented footwear, but an infinite inventory of NBA junk, official and otherwise, wearable or not. If it’s old and NBA, it’s worth watching. Keep checking back for the best in vintage NBA memorabilia around. This week, we have a game-worn Mark Price jersey and some Steve Nash kicks.
Dead Auction: Mark Price ’95-96 Champion Game Worn Red Bullets Jersey
Ended: $615.15
Mark Price was picked 25th overall in the 1986 NBA Draft, in the second round, and was a better shooter than anyone drafted that decade. He had two teammates picked ahead of him, Brad Daugherty and Ron Harper. The three would form the nucleus of a great, if flawed, Cavs team. Each player passed the 10,000-point plateau, two made All-Star teams and one was All-Rookie. It might have hurt to be drafted so late, but someone has to pay the price. That collection might have been the best Draft haul of the past 30 years by one team. No team has drafted their entire nucleus in one season – Seattle’s 2007 haul of Kevin Durant and Jeff Green is is a close parallel, but it’s still quite far.
(That 1986 Draft held the best second round, too: Price the shooter led it off and Dennis Rodman was two picks later. Jeff Hornacek was selected that round towards the end, and Drazen Petrovic went in the third.)
Should Price have been picked third? Harper had the best rookie season and a cool career – Cavs to Clippers to Jordan-Bulls, with a perfunctory late-career Lakers pit stop – which was the longest, but he never made an All-Star team. Daugherty was outstanding early and often, but retired at 28. Price, might have been the cream of the crop, the best offensive second-round NBA selection of the last 30 years. Price wasn’t as valuable as, say, Rodman: per Win Shares, his career plus that of Spencer Haywood would be equivalent to Worm’s. But there are few in his class.
Price’s overall shooting percentages were never worse than decent early on – when he hit 30, they fell precipitously – but from the line and long-range he was historic, pointing to an incredibly refined skillset. Even in his bad years, he was good: On the Bullets, he played just seven games, but did not miss a shot from the line. Whether that’s a point of commemoration is to be debated, but thanks for $615.15, it’s possible.
Live Auction: Nike AIR MAX JET FLIGHT 11 Nash low vtg og rare 2000 00
Buy It Now: $89.99
Ten years later, Steve Nash went 10 picks earlier than Price, and was booed for it. Fans weren’t thrilled at the prospect of a nobody Canadian with a good haircut going early in a loaded Draft, and Nash had to live up to high expectations in a city that was just a few years removed from an NBA title run. Most of the earlier picks that year were studs and fans knew it.
But Nash was always a shooter. The trappings of a championship-level club, albeit without Charles Barkley, meant entrenched point guards (and Jason Kidd‘s Zoom Flight 5 on Nash’s rookie feet) and little playing time, but the Santa Clara product was deadly from far even then – the seventh-most accurate ever, as of this writing. Still, his court vision, if present, was harder to see, and Nash would not excel until he reached Dallas and ran the pick-and-roll. He would not become elite until he did it quicker in Phoenix. By then, he was no longer considered a shooter, but an assist-man.
Nash recently left Nike for Luyou, a mildly surprising move. His play improved at a greater rate than did his shoes. Indeed, his first, the Jet Flight is a cult classic, and it may or may not be because of Nash. Incredibly light and flexible, designed with a toe to the floor and an elevated heel, it’s earned its fans, and equipment loyalties have been built on less. Still, who besides guards and sneakerheads knew Nash was a Nike guy?
Design-wise, it might not have gotten better than the Air Jet Flight, though his Nikes have all been on consensus excellent guard shoes. Now, Nash is taking a slalom run at Mark Price’s free-throw record, ahead one day, behind the next. All those assists and trophies and Nash is still a shooter. Was there any doubt he wasn’t?
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