The most exclusive Skybox set of 1999-2000 was their E-X basketball cards. A small 90-card set, and necessarily small, because the retail price topped $1 per card, $3.99 for a three-card pack. But Skybox went really expensive and really affordable in 1999-2000 and their Skybox Impact was the most accessible of their sets that year. Impact was 200 cards (175 veterans and 25 rookies) and why not try to complete the set when you got ten cards for 99 cents? The cards aren’t very valuable today, but that wasn’t the point of the set. This was about simplicity and fun…purchase as much as you want and try to collect them all! No parallel sets, no serial-numbered rookies, even the two insert sets weren’t very hard to find. There weren’t even any subsets! Players were scattered randomly, and numbered 1-200 with one design for the veterans and another for the rookies.
There was no doubt you found a rookie card with the word “Rookies” very large on the left. There was also a large net in the background. A small, but clever, design element was a thin border surrounding the player. If you look closely, the player weaves in-and-out of this border. On the Lamar Odom card, his legs are tucked inside this border making it look like his knee pops out of the image a bit. And one arm is inside while one arm extends above this border. The rookies have a little value, but have lost popularity since their production.
The backs were very traditional and the same for veterans and rookies. Typical biographical information, statistics, and additional info below. The statistics for his single year at the University of Rhode Island include turnovers per game, a statistic that you don’t see on cards too often, but is included in this Skybox Impact set. The information is generic, but does capture the athleticism that drew the Clippers to this player.
Nothing too exciting to say, just a nice simple, affordable set! But with the amount of parallels and sheer quantity of sets that started appearing around 1999-2000, simple could be refreshing.
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