1993-94

The 24th season of the Portland Trail Blazers was not to be their finest as they were knocked out of the playoffs in the first round in what would be Clyde Drexler's final playoffs as a Trail Blazer.  The Sonics and the Rockets would rule the West in this season.

In the world of basketball cards, this year would mark the introduction of Topps' Finest set.  The surface of the cards was protected by a protective coating.  This always seemed silly to me as serious collectors would always want these cards with the peel in tact which means you always have to look at the cards with the stupid peel wording on it...but i digress...

Finest also included a parallel refractor set with refractor cards in approximately 1:18 packs.  Refractors are basically what they sound like - cards with a special coating that refract the light.  These have always appealed to the lady in me who likes shiny things.

Fleer's Flair set was also nice this year, featuring again thick card stock and a boarderless image on both the front and back.  The Flair brand may to this day consistently remain my favorite card line.  They're always so neat and clean.

And then there's Fleer, which had an improved design this year.  More pictures, less clutter.  Did anyone actually recall that James Edwards was ever a member of the Trail Blazers?  He spent this second to last season of his career with the Blazers.

Fleer's All-Star insert set featured Blazer stars Clyde Drexler and Cliff Robinson. This insert set had a ball background that was textured to feel like the bumps on the ball.  Pretty cool.

Additional Fleer insert sets included League Leaders (Tracy Murray for 3 point shooting) and Team leaders (Rod Strickland for assists).

Blazer rookie James "Hollywood" Robinson out of Alabama was featured on a Rookie Sensation card. He also competed in the Dunk Contest at All-Star weekend in this year but alas, came in last.

ProMags - I admittedly don't know much about these but this magnet set was produced featuring 3 Blazers - Williams, Robinson (pictured below) and Drexler.

This year Fleer introduced their oversized "Jam Session" cards.  Again assuming that basketball players are tall, sport cards should be too, Fleer produced this set of featured players from each team.  These cards are sort of cool in that they're different but a pain to deal with in that they don't easily fit into card pages or holders and as a result are easily damaged.

Hoops was back again with a nice boarderless set of their own.  They also made sure to designate rookies so that there would be no doubt.

They also decided to commemorate their 5th year in business with anniversary stamped parallel cards.

Their insert sets included Power Predator cards...

and regular Hoops Power cards featuring star players from each team.

Skybox had a rather unmemorable entry into this year's card world, but they are still highlighting the ball in yellow...and apparently the rookies.

The did include a nice draft set featuring blazer draftee Aaron McKee along with Ragin' Rookies (huh?) James Robinson.

They did come out with a few other nice inserts including Skytech Force (again - I have no idea what that means but they look nice)....

and Slammin' Universe which I always enjoyed.

Upper Deck introduced their SP line.  I'm assuming SP stands for "short print" but I've never actually heard definitively.  SP cards came with die-cut parallels and represented another premium brand.

Not to mention a number of different styles.

The rookie set featuring yet another Hologram.  Upper Deck loves their holograms.

Back to Topps.  The regular set of Topps included a gold parallel set as well.

Stadium Club went very 90s for their 1993-94 edition which is to say ugly backside design.  The front is in keeping with the popular boarderless design made famous by the 1992 Skybox USA set.

The Dynasty insert set was also nothing to write home about, though it's always nice when a Blazer is included in something with the word dynasty involved.

Topps went crazy with parallels to this set - shown below is the base card, 1st day issue, Member's only, and SuperTeam version of the Mark Bryant card.  The 1st day issue cards were insert sets.  The Member's only and SuperTeam cards were redemptions.

The Super Team Blazers team card.

Other inserts from Stadium Club included the Beam Team and Clear Shot cards.  The clear cards are interesting, though they're only as good as what's behind them really.

Franz continued with their annual Blazer card bread pack inserts. They too got the boarderless message.

And yes, another boarderless design...Ultra.  The 3 picture montage on the back is pretty nice.

Upper Deck decided to not go completely boarderless like everyone else but rather 3 side boarderless.  Again, it's an okay card design but nothing particularly memorable.

Upper Deck included insert Predictor game cards.  It was some sort of game to play card wise throughout the NBA season.  In actuality, it requires team collectors to try to hunt down more random parallel cards.

Insert cards including a rookie set (because rookies rule the card collecting world) and a Shawn Kemp slam dunk set.  This was when Kemp was still young and athletic and actually capable of getting off the ground and dunking the ball.

Upper Deck had their separate set which included a gold parallel.  The silver actually dulls down the color in the picture a bit making it pop less.  There is also a lot of clutter in the design.  They should have really not bothered with this one.

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...