After a 10-year break from the hobby, Topps returned to the basketball card market with this 1992-93 set. Series I and II both had 198 cards for a total of 396 cards. With no order to the appearance of the players, the set becomes very monotonous. Thankfully, there were a few subsets that helped with structure and variety. Honestly, the design doesn’t stray far from Topps’ last basketball card set, 1981-82. Both are an action photo surrounded by a rectangular white border. The Topps logo on the top of the card remains identical in position and style to 1981-82. ’81-82, had a thin interior border in a team color. ’92-93 has an interior border in a random color with another thin, white border around it. Two colored rectangles hold the player and team names. The backs are horizontal, but these lack any interesting information. There’s the standard biographical info in a light-blue rectangle, complete statistics in a yellow section and a small photo of the player.
Collectors tend to overlook these cards other than the Shaq and Alonzo Mourning rookies. Even the fact that it’s the first Topps set after a ten-year break doesn’t do much for the value or excitement. But look closer at the back and let me tell you why I find these cards interesting and useful. Within the complete NBA record, moments when a player led the league in a particular category are highlighted in red. This is a really nice feature when browsing the set. You can rapidly see moments of greatness for each player, not just for the previous season, but for their whole career! In this #141 Jordan card, you can see that in four different seasons, he tied with others playing all 82 games (not a very exciting statistic, but at least Topps is being comprehensive), he led in field goals made for six seasons in a row. But look at 1988-89, he didn’t lead in attempts. So that season was particularly accurate shooting-wise. In the other seasons, he attempted the most field goals while making the most. But that season, at least one other person attempted more, and Jordan still came out on top. Free throws and steals show some highlights, but we see his true dominance in points and scoring average. He led the league every year except the one with an injury. And he was unstoppable with scoring average starting in 1986-87. There’s also playoff statistics for 91-92 and the player’s whole career, a feature you don’t find on many cards.
The ’92-93 Topps cards aren’t valuable. I bet you could pick up this Jordan for less than $2 if you’re patient. But because they’re so inexpensive, it’s really worth having a set just for those league leader indicators in the stats. Really a neat idea!
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