...*is* (in-effect) the trophy.

Always tossed my trophies and other stuff after a bit (they were all plastic anyway). Most valuable physical things to me were the uniform I wore, and photos of the team.

I remember seeing Marbury's trophy case as a kid (he was a year ahead of me I think) and wondered what he was gonna do with all that crap: https://cdn-s3.si.com/s3fs-public/si/multimedia/photo_gallery/1203/stephon.marbury.rare.photos/images/marbury-trophies.jpg


Edit: Plus, I was mad competitive as a kid and used to cry when I lost ball tournaments so the consolation prize wasn't going to help. Would probably help some kids tho.