NBA Hoops and Skybox were under the same parent company, Impel Marketing, and although Hoops entered the scene in 1989-90, it was 1990-91 when the name “Skybox” made its debut on the market. On the reverse of the cards, the “NBA Properties, Inc.” copyright shows that this is one of the first times a division of a professional sports league became involved in the card market. While NBA Hoops was going for a classic look, the Skybox cards had futuristic, colorful, computer-generated backgrounds surrounded by a gold border. They really were very exciting when they first arrived. A lot of thought went into these cards when they first arrived in 15-card foil packs. Even the statistics on the back a unique feature. They compared an individual’s stats to the average of his position. The set was a substantial 423 cards, 300 in a first series and a smaller 123-card Series II that arrived in mid-March. The Series II cards included coaches (301-327) and team checklists (328-354)
Then there were eleven NBA Draft Picks cards (355-365) featuring the lottery picks from 1990. This, along with ’90-91 Hoops, was one of the first times that collectors could obtain rookie cards of current-year rookies in base sets. The design of this subset matched the base cards, but there was an additional “NBA Draft” logo on the front and the reverse did not have a photograph, instead, being mostly text-based. Next were some basic player updates (366-420) and checklists (421-423). And just like we discussed in the 1990-91 Hoops set, cards were pulled from Series I to make room for Series II, meaning that these 123 pulled cards are short prints and a bit more rare than others in the set. There were some important rookies including Shawn Kemp, Gary Payton and Glen Rice. But, like most sets of the era, it was overproduced, and the values of all the cards never really took off.
Individual Cards:
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