Mementos Lost To Time

ESPN business reporter Darren Rovell answers a question we've always had: What happens to all the merchandise they make for the team that in the championship game? Rovell tracks how merchandisers made "2005 NBA Champions" apparel for both the Spurs and the Pistons — it's only the third time in the modern era the NBA has had to produce both team's memorabilia — and details the sad home for the now-defunct goods.

Meanwhile, Andy Koper and Kenny Seitel push their suitcases — filled to the brim with "Back to Back" items with Detroit Pistons logos on them from the entrance of one of the tunnels back through the bowels of the SBC Center, and eventually into the truck of a Silver Dodge Caravan.

And what happens to all those shirts after that? Are they swiped and sold on eBay? Nope. They apparently help, like, poor people and stuff.

As for the Pistons gear it will eventually wind up in the hands of people in Third World countries — far from the reach of eBay.

Said an NBA official: "The prevailing thought was that it was always destroyed. But a t-shirt with an inaccurate graphic could be beneficial to less fortunate people in a different part of the world."

Tracking The Merchandise [ESPN]