From the personal collection of Christian Laettner comes this autographed ticket stub from the 1992 Barcelona Olympic Men's Basketball Gold Medal Final. Recently dual-graded by PSA, it stands alone as the highest-graded ticket stub – unsigned or signed – from the Dream Team’s gold medal triumph over Croatia.
Coming off back-to-back NCAA Championship seasons to end his storied college career at Duke, the reigning Naismith College Player of the Year was the only college player selected for USA Basketball's inaugural "Dream Team" of professional superstars. Called "the greatest collection of basketball talent on the planet" by the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame, the unbeatable bunch annihilated each opponent in Barcelona that summer with a 44-point average margin of victory en route to the gold medal. As the youngest member of a team full of Hall of Famers, the then-22-year-old Laettner played in all eight blowout wins and contributed 4.8 points per game while handling his share of "rookie" duties with pride.
This stub was used by one of Laettner's family members to attend USA's 117-85 massacre over Croatia in the Olympic Men’s Basketball Gold Medal Final at Barcelona’s Palau Municipal d'Esports on August 8, 1992. Michael Jordan’s 22 points led a balanced scoring attack for the Dream Team that saw seven players reach double figures. Laettner tallied two points on a pair of free throws in two minutes of action. Croatia’s Drazen Petrovic led all scorers in the game with 24 points, followed by Dino Radja’s 23 and Toni Kukoc’s 16. It was a game full of NBA stars on both sides.
Before this stub and the one we sold last auction in the same grade were submitted to PSA, the highest-graded example in PSA’s population report out of 13 authenticated (including eleven unsigned and two signed versions) was GD 2. This PSA VG-EX 4, which seems harsh considering its mid-to-high-grade appearance, is now two full points ahead. Laettner has signed it in bold black marker (his Olympic No. "4" inscribed), which earned a perfect 10 grade from PSA/DNA. If you’ve been searching for the “holy grail” of Dream Team tickets, look no further. Includes LOA from Christian Laettner.