Collect a Woj Bomb artifact: NBA insider's items up for grabs in partnership to support St. Bonaventure basketball

BUFFALO, N.Y. (WIVB) -- Would you like to own a piece of Woj Bomb-orabilia?

Adrian Wojnarowski, the retired NBA insider now managing St. Bonaventure University's men's basketball program, has partnered with upstart Daps Bounty to auction some of the tools used to dig out thousands of NBA scoops.

Basketball fans and memorabilia collectors can bid on Wojnarowski's old iPhones -- the data has been wiped from the devices -- along with press credentials saved from his nearly two decades breaking NBA news for ESPN and Yahoo Sports. Revenue generated from the marketing partnership will fund St. Bonaventure's NIL collective Team Unfurl.

"This is another instance where I'm trying to impact our program and help raise revenue," said Wojnarowski, a 1989 St. Bonaventure graduate who took a 99% pay cut from his ESPN contract reportedly worth more than $20 million to take the GM position at his alma mater in October. "We are in a fight to do that, especially in our conference. And we're trying to do everything we can to be creative, innovative."

This year's recipient of the Curt Gowdy Media Insight Award presented by the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame, Wojnarowski is making the items used in his former job available to help launch Daps Bounty, a demand-first marketplace described as "reverse eBay" by founder Jake Klores that allows fans to make offers for any sports collectible or experience they can imagine.

"Incredibly excited to be teaming up with Woj for this first collection," said Klores, a former University of Columbia basketball player. "Woj is a legend and we're so excited to be able to honor is legendary career in journalism and let fans get access to come of the iconic items that represented moments in history of the game of basketball."

Fans also can make offers for personal experiences with athletes, coaches, and sports personalities like Wojnarowski, ranging from dinners, video calls and social media interactions, Klores said.

Press credentials from myriad NBA Finals, All-Star Weekends, drafts, lotteries and summer leagues will be part of the Daps Bounty launch, as well as Wojnarowski's most recent ESPN employee badge.

"I would say the most memorable would probably be the last NBA draft," Wojnarowski said. "Because I knew it was going to be the last one, or I was very confident anyway. And I tried to take that moment in a little more than others."

Having purchased the newest iPhone most every year and saved them in a drawer in his home office, Wojnarowski was advised by his representatives not to throw them away when he no longer needed them.

"I would go through them pretty fast," Wojnarowski said. "For whatever reason they wore out pretty fast with me. I probably bought a new one more quickly than others did because I never wanted to be in a situation where there's some kind of malfunction."

The phones will be packaged to indicate the NBA seasons Wojnarowski used them, and some of the major stories reported.

"Whoever gets that iPhone would know what trades or hirings or free agent signings, whatever the news was at that time, what phone I had in the bubble," Wojnarowski said. "That will be very clear by the model of the phone."

Each of the phones have been erased of data, however, notably the myriad text message conversations with NBA sources that informed Wojnarowski's relentless reporting.

"I did have one GM joke with me that the unwiped phones were probably worth a heck of a lot more," Wojnarowski said. "There would probably be 30 teams, a league office and a union that would probably chip in to not have the contents of those phones released.

"Which if I really wanted to bankroll NIL, that probably would've been the way to go," Wojnarowski concluded with a laugh. "But then they probably wouldn't have taken any of our Bona players in the pros. We would've wreaked some havoc."