Hacka's epic journey of the last 30 years of NBA cards

[hackadeandre]

1991-92 Fleer

Insert Sets

Dikembe Mutombo

This was a 12 card set of just Dikembe. Love that old school Nuggets jersey! These cards came autographed as well, which brings me to one of my exclusions in this chase. If they are a set of 1 player only and the card is exactly the same other than the autograph, I won't worry about chasing the autographed version.

Dominique Wilkins

The same as the Dikembe set, this one's for @OutlawNinja !

Pro-Visions

The 'Art Cards' are coming thick and fast and this one was a part of a 6 card insert set. Love how MJ has a jet pack instead of legs!

Rookie Sensations

The sophomore year of the 'Rookie Sensations' legacy, no better one to have than The Glove! These were also reproduced in the Fleer Retro series.

Schoolyard Stars

If I had a guess here, The Mailman is working a nice offensive post move so why on the back is he giving rebounding tips?

 

[hackadeandre]

1991-92 Hoops

Heaps of subsets (again) and a couple of insert sets, here we go!

Base card #30 Michael Jordan
'Has scored 40 or more against every team in the NBA'.

Subsets

All-Stars

League Leaders

Didn't realise Bernard King was still kicking around the league at this time, 3rd in scoring! Even more unbelievable is Michael Adams in 6th, where did that come from?

Milestones

1991 NBA Champions

That's more like it with a team photo, show Detroit how it should be done!

 

[hackadeandre]

Rookies

Looks like Grandmama had enough coin before the NBA to score himself that gold tooth!

All-Time Stat Leaders

If Wilt had of gone for 0 points instead of 100 in his record breaking game, his All-Time average would have slipped under 30 points a game to 29.999042 points per game. That was lucky!

Tribune

How many defenders does it take to stop Michael Jordan? Going by this pic, more than 4.

Yearbook

It's a shame Larry's mo' wasn't near as outstanding as his ability to play basketball. Averaged 30.3 ppg in college, must have scored nearly half of Indiana's points!

Supreme Court

Next year Supreme Court goes to the insert variety.

 

[hackadeandre]

USA

If Larry's excited, they should all be excited!

Insert Sets

1991-92 Hoops All-Star MVP's

WINNER! Again.

1991-92 Hoops Slam Dunk

Followed by another WINNER!

 

[hackadeandre]

1991-92 Skybox

The sophomore year of Skybox brings a much nicer looking product. Although they printed about a million of each card and there was only 1 insert, a lot of thought went into the design with a heap of subsets and crisp looking cards.

Base card #39 Michael Jordan

Back on set with MJ.

Subsets

Stats

Michael Adams and Orlando Woolridge in the Top 5, wow. GO DENVER GO!

GQ

If Magic says it then it must be true. Pattern on stripes gents!

Great Moments from the NBA Finals

Both MJ's sporting the different short sizes back in the early 90's. Short and very short.

Game Frame

Never heard of the (at the time) Bulls all-time rebound or assist leader. I need to get educated!

 

[hackadeandre]

Rookies

Somehow I think the public are happy Dikembe didn't end up becoming a doctor.

USA

USA basketball more of a challenge than NBA basketball? Results would tell us otherwise Michael!

Barcelona '92

This is the last card of this 3 card subset, the first 2 spell 'Barcelon'. I can't argue with any of those USA team selections.

Salutes

SkyMaster

Finally, a different player to talk about! Same team but Pip certainly did know how to enter aerospace.

 

[hackadeandre]

Shooting Star

How the game has changed. '4th among all-time leaders in 3 pointers made with 597'. I'm pretty certain that Steph Curry may achieve this number in the last 2 years by the time the season is done.

Small School Sensation

Don Dyer @ University of Central Arkansas = Winner

Insert Sets

1991-92 Skybox Blister Inserts

Joe & Isiah split the Finals MVP Awards in their back-to-back wins.

 

[hackadeandre]

The 1991-92 season comes to a close with the inaugural Upper Deck release. Nice popular Upper Deck 90's design with 3 insert sets.

1991-92 Upper Deck

Base card #44 Michael Jordan
You can see why Upper Deck was so popular, both sides with full colour game action and a sharp, simple design.

Subsets

Classic Confrontation

Changing of the guard.

Rookies

Terrell Brandon is someone you don't hear about much but was quite a decent player. He didn't get the luxury of playing on any good teams so he gets no love.

Stay in School

If you don't stay in school you will not be able to read the paper with your NBA championship trophy between your legs.

All-Star Weekend

Maybe someone can enlighten me why Kevin Duckworth is in the West team and Hakeem Olajuwon isn't?

 

[hackadeandre]

90-91 All-Star

Checklist

Taken straight from last year's Hoops idea is the art card checklist. The Boston logo has covered the artist's last name! Robbed!

NBA Top Prospects

Steve Smith. Handy player that probably didn't reach the heights that he or his employers would have hoped.

All-Star Weekend (Orlando this time)

Upper Deck have squeezed 2 All-Star games into 1 season!

Insert Sets

1991-92 Award Winner Holograms

This is 2 years before my collecting time but I reckon these cards would have been extremely popular with collectors when they came out. Definitely nothing else like it at the time. Sorry, again photography is not my strong point.

 

[hackadeandre]

1991-92 Jerry West Heroes

The Logoman! These 'Heroes' cards lasted a long time (I think even into the late '00's) and from what I understand the numbering just continued from the last number of the previous player. 1 player was featured in each release.

1991-92 Upper Deck Rookie Standouts

Why did Upper Deck make an insert card look exactly the same as a base card? Their creativity did pick up later on though.

And that's 1991-92 and the first 5 years of this chase complete!

 

[wjrwebber]

This is going to be a long (and awesome) "trip down memory lane" thread. How many years are you going to go cataloging each set!?

 

[hackadeandre]

Welcome to 1992-93 @shawnkemp40 ! It is still 12 months prior to buying my first pack of cards! It's funny that prior to this there had been insert cards but not a huge amount, and this year Fleer, Hoops and Upper Deck brought out series with heaps of inserts! Were they communicating with each other? Highly coincidental.

1992-93 Fleer

Base card #66 Dennis Rodman
The Worm doing what he does best. Amazing to think that he played every game in a season and AVERAGED 18.7 rebounds a game!

Subsets

League Leaders

Surprise, surprise. He's back, back again. MJ's back, tell a friend.

NBA Award Winner

x 2, mind you

Schoolyard Stars

Larry Legend says practice, practice, practice. Practice must make perfect.

Slam Dunk

I would say if you could take a photo of Patrick Ewing's nightmares, it would look something like this.

 

[hackadeandre]

Insert sets

1992-93 Fleer All-Stars

Was thinking who am I going to put in for this set? MJ definitely not, plenty of others to choose from. Decided to go with card #1, Michael Adams. Mainly because I think this is the last time we will see Michael Adams in this thread. This was Michael's first and last All-Star berth and probably off the back of lighting it up for 26.5 PPG the previous year.

1992-93 Fleer Larry Johnson

Fleer continuing on with it's theme of showcasing a particular player in an insert set and releasing a parallel autographed version. Why not choose the reigning Rookie of the Year!

1992-93 Fleer Rookie Sensations

The third instalment of Fleer's Rookie Sensations features Dikembe Mutombo. Didn't realise just how dominant he was from the get go, averaging a double/double and 5th in the league in blocks at 2.96 per game. I'm wondering how LJ won the ROY award if Dikembe had numbers like that!

1992-93 Fleer Sharpshooters

Oh, what could have been. Much the same reason as Michael Adams earlier, unfortunately we won't get the opportunity to see Drazen in this thread again. I particularly like this card that features 2 European players, would have been a rare sight back in the day.

1992-93 Fleer Team Leaders

Can't think of any better way to lead a team than leading the NBA in both blocks and steals IN THE SAME SEASON! The Admiral certainly deserves his legendary status.

 

[hackadeandre]

1992-93 Fleer Total D

The Dream was certainly a defensive weapon, the stats pointed out on the back of this card back this up. I just would like to know when Panini are going to release game used 'goggles' cards as I really want a Hakeem one.

 

[penny collector]

OOh the build to my still fav base release of all time and the classic MJ shot! great mailday this is pretty awesome!

 

[hackadeandre]

This is going to be a long (and awesome) "trip down memory lane" thread. How many years are you going to go cataloging each set!?

Cheers mate, going to attempt to get to the end of 2014-15 by the time 2015-16 ends. Long way to go lol.

 

[hackadeandre]

OOh the build to my still fav base release of all time and the classic MJ shot! great mailday this is pretty awesome!

Thanks mate. I'm hoping by the time that this thread ends it will be a great way to have a one-stop place to have an in-depth tour of the last 30 years of cardboard!

 

[shawnkemp40]

I am so chuffed to see some of these cards again. The simplicity is what keep these cards dear to me. I probably started collecting around 1992 but you could still relatively easily get packs from about 87/88. Those ud award winner holograms were the business back then! Love this thread...love it

 

[hackadeandre]

I am so chuffed to see some of these cards again. The simplicity is what keep these cards dear to me. I probably started collecting around 1992 but you could still relatively easily get packs from about 87/88. Those ud award winner holograms were the business back then! Love this thread...love it

Couldn't agree more. I suppose cards are a bit like the NBA (or anything else) in general and have changed quite considerably over time. I suppose the thing I miss is not being able to open a $3 pack of cards and be happy with what's in there. Even if there is a nice auto in there, there's still a mountain of super premium cards these days that make whatever you get out of a cheap pack seem like nothing special.

 

[hackadeandre]

Now onto the Hoops!

1992-93 Hoops

Base card #34 Scottie Pippen
Look how Pip exploded in his 2nd year in college, quadrupled his production!

Subsets

All-Star Weekend

Looks like he's Hakeem's problem here...

League Leaders

Look at that All-Time Greats list there!

USA Basketball

Rookies

Spree! 2nd favourite player back in the day. Didn't realise he split his college years with 2 different teams. Problems with the coach maybe?