1992-93

The 1992-93 year in basketball cards was the beginning of the era of inserts and parallel cards - two staples of sports cards that dominated the 1990s.  They also happen to be two staples that I love.

Fleer finally came out with a nice looking base set, after several years of disaster.  This set had a nice, clean design and glossier (non-paper) back.  I also like the artistic rendering of the all-stars which were the lower numbered base cards of this set (see Drexler below).

This is the Sharp Shooter insert set, featuring Terry Porter and Clyde Drexler.  While Drexler ended up being a good outside shooter, I'll never forget that he had the flattest looking jump shot ever.

Other Blazers featured on Fleer inserts from this year were Buck Williams in the Total D insert set and of course Drexler from the All-Star insert set.  While none of these insert sets were especially flashy, they were nice nonetheless.

Hoops also came out with a nice, clean look for the 1992-93 season.  And it never hurts to have a shot of The Glide shoving Jeff Hornacek out of the way en route to the hoop.

This is the Blazers team card from that set.  A nice faded look of the city is in the background.

Dave Johnson and Tracy Murray were the Blazers rookies this season.  Johnson was an athletic player out of Syracuse but only lasted 2 seasons in the NBA.  Murray was a solid 3 point shooter out of UCLA.  He only played 2.5 seasons for the Blazers before being dealt to the Houston Rockets.  He actually came back to the Blazers at the end of the 2003 season and finished out his career in Portland where he started.

Hoops made Supreme Court an insert set for the 1992-93 year.  Of course, Drexler is our representative.

Skybox went boarderless for their 1992-93 set, after having much success with a similar design for their USA basketball cards which came out earlier in the summer of 1992.  They included "fun facts" about each player and coach on the back.  This is a much improved card design over their first 2 years of computerized craziness, though they couldn't help but keep the yellow highlights on the ball.  The overall look and pictures were a success though.

Even though the Blazers didn't win in the 1992 finals, at least there are Skybox cards permanently memorializing their presence in the Finals.  As much as I would have loved to see this Blazer team get some rings, Jordan's Bulls proved too tough.

Topps came back to the basketball card fray with 2 different lines of cards.  Stadium Club was by far the nicest set to come out in this year.  The super clean, boarderless design and glossy finish was a cut above the rest.  Plus the sharp pictures still look nice.  This is one of my all time favorite card sets.

Stadium Club also produced the Beam Team insert set.  I'm not sure what Beam Team is supposed to mean.  They were included in a pack rate of 1:36.  Of course it includes some holographic imaging.  Everything in the early 1990s was about the holograph.  Of course, that only looks nice if you hold a card at a perfect angle in the light.  Otherwise it looks like a gray blob.

Stadium Club was also one of the first (that I am aware) to have parallel cards.  They had the Members Choice which was issued as a factory set.  The Starting Lineup cards were included along with the Starting Lineup action figure toys.

The back of the Stadium Club card.  They included what they call a players "rookie card", though it is really only the first Topps card for that player so it is sort of pointless since the card featured for Drexler, for example, is just a regular base card.

This is the Topps regular edition set...and it is ugly.  It is the same design as the Topps football and baseball sets from that year.  Way too much going on with the boarders and the back is a bit bright with the yellow.

They made up for it somewhat with the Archive set.  This set features players from their rookie years on Topps baseball card designs from those years.  It is sort of a "make up" set since Topps didn't produce basketball cards during those periods.

Topps also produced gold parallels to the regular Archive and Base sets and were issued as pack inserts.

Drexler Topps gold parallel.

Franz continued to produce a Blazers card set.  They were savvy enough to put them into plastic sleeves before sticking them into loaves of bread this year though.

The Franz design was also a nice boarderless set.  A bonus is seeing Kersey stifling Jordan.

Lamont Strothers also played briefly for the Blazers before enjoying most of his success in the Phillipines.

Fleer also came out with came out with a premier set - Ultra. Comparable to Stadium Club, it was a nicer set with a nice looking boarderless design.  The back is also nice, including multiple pictures.  My guess is that both Topps and Fleer decided they needed something that could compete with Upper Deck, who had set the bar for sports cards higher in the previous couple of years.

Ultra also came out with a couple of nice parallel sets, including All-NBA first team and Playmakers.

Upper Deck did not disappoint in 1992-93 coming out with what I think is an improvement on 1991-92, which was also a nice looking set.  The large picture on back feels like a bonus to the great graphics on front.

Some of the higher numbered cards in the set included draft prospects and game faces.  Not fancy but fun.

Additional inserts from Upper Deck.

Upper Deck also began selling cards overseas which were slightly different than their American equivalent, mainly due to language in the back.

Drexler Team MVP insert from this season.

Due to the growing popularity in card collecting during this era, many smaller companies also began trying to make a name for themselves.  World Class investments came out with a set in this year which, at most, remains a footnote in the annals of card collecting history.  I don't know that the two Blazer cards I have from this set will ever constitute a world class investment...