Tales of Michael Jordan beating the Pistons, the Knicks and the Jazz are all part of his lore, but MJ really owned the Cleveland Cavaliers.
There was May 7, 1989, at the Richfield Coliseum when Jordan rose over Craig Ehlo to nail a buzzer-beater, that became "The Shot," and eliminated the Cavs from the first round of the Eastern Conference playoffs.
And there was the lesser-known game from March 28, 1990, when Jordan, on the road again in Cleveland, scored his career-high 69 points.
Several mementos from that record game sold for $8,561 on Monday night at Goldin Auctions, consigned by Kenny Roda, who worked for Cablevision, a local access channel.
On that spring night in 1990, Roda, three years out of college, asked the Cavaliers if he could use the game to make a demo tape for his future play-by-play career.
"The game wasn't sold out, so they put me in the upper deck, where I wouldn't be bothered, and I sat there with a cassette recorder and a microphone."
To keep up with the game, Roda kept a diligent scorecard and had a lot of Jordan highlights fill up the tape.
Jordan went 23-for-37 from the field, 21-for-23 from the line and had 18 rebounds. The 69 points were the most since David Thompson scored 73 points 12 years before.
Jordan had a reason for scoring a career high in a random game in March. He took it personally, of course.
"Earlier in the first quarter, when I think I got a hard foul from Hot Rod (Williams) and I ... fell the wrong way, and I was really in pain," Jordan said. "And the whole crowd cheered. And that right there pissed me off. Because they were more in tune to winning than someone's health. And that kind of fired me up. That's when I went crazy.'"
Roda realized in the postgame scene how special the night was.
"After the game, we are standing there, and people are saying it's a career high for Jordan, so I thought, 'Wow, this is a big game,'" Roda said. "And it was a much more lenient time, so as the scrum went down, I had an idea."
Standing there with his Hoop Magazine game program and his box score, Roda asked Jordan to sign both, and the Bulls star obliged.
When Roda got home, he had the magazine, the box score and his credential framed, and all the items have been in his office ever since.
As he turns 60, Roda said it's time to move on from some of his memorabilia, and that's why he sold the items at Goldin.
"I honestly thought he would beat it, but he never did," Roda admitted.
As for his play-by-play reel?
"I think it's lost," Roda said. "I have boxes and boxes in my garage, but I didn't find it the last time I looked. So many tapes are shredded or ripped."
Darren Rovell is the founder of cllct.com and one of the country's leading reporters on the collectibles market. He previously worked for ESPN, CNBC and The Action Network.