Oscar Robertson's auctioning off his one and only NBA championship ring
Weeks after receiving a Lifetime Achievement Award from the NBA, legendary trailblazer Oscar Robertson has decided to put a whole bunch of rare mementos on the auction block … including the lone NBA championship ring he won during his legendary career.
Oscar Robertson’s 1971 NBA championship ring is on the auction block
The Lelands.com 2018 Invitational Auction, which opened on Sunday and runs through Aug. 17, includes 51 items from the Hall of Fame point guard’s playing days. The memorabilia stretches back to Robertson’s teenage years, with an Indiana state high school championship ring — earned for leading the Crispus Attucks High School team to becoming the first all-black squad ever to win the crown in the Hoosier State — available at a starting bid of $5,000. Some of the items come from his remarkable run at the University of Cincinnati, including a pair of game-worn jerseys, several National Player of the Year awards, and this handsome silver pitcher “given to the Big O for leading the Cincinnati Bearcats in free-throw percentage in 1959-60.”
The most eye-catching item on the menu, though, is the 1971 NBA championship ring that Robertson received after partnering with Lew Alcindor (who’d later change his name to Kareem Abdul-Jabbar) to lead the Milwaukee Bucks to the title in his first season in Wisconsin. It’s not nearly as sparkly as the jewelry NBA champions receive these days, but it’s a 10-karat gold ring with a diamond set in a basketball in the middle with “NBA WORLD CHAMPIONS” inscribed around it, a full-fledged piece of NBA history.
“This is the one and only ring Oscar received for that magical season and has been in his possession ever since,” the listing reads. And now, it can be yours, provided you’ve got the high bid in 31 days’ time. (As of 1:30 p.m. ET on Monday afternoon, it’s up to $24,200.)
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6 years ago
Lelands.com