9 Great Rookie Basketball Cards That Never Were
The NBA Draft has us looking back at some great rookie cards we were robbed of collecting for various reasons!
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🏀 9 Great Rookie Basketball “Cards That Never Were” & 13 Others!
Baseball and Football cards have always had cards produced every season dating back to the early ‘50s, but the NBA is still a relatively new league. When the sports cards industry was getting its legs under it in the ‘50s and ‘60s, Basketball cards were a secondary thought, considering there were just FOUR card sets produced before the ‘70s, with one in the ‘40s, one in the ‘50s and two in the ‘60s.
That means a lot of players didn’t get the full rookie card treatment like they did in other sports. We’re going to fix that by pointing out some of the greatest rookie basketball cards that never were!
Some of these were because cards weren’t produced in a particular year, and some were for other interesting reasons. Obviously, there are dozens of amazing players whose rookie cards came in 1957, 1961 or 1969, despite them coming into the league a year or two earlier. But this list is for more the egregious cards we missed out on.
1962 Topps John Havlicek: “Hondo” came into the league one year after Fleer produced a 1961 set, and seven years before Topps produced the 1969 set. That means his ’69 rookie card is him in his NBA eighth season!
1973 Topps Dave Winfield: The Baseball Hall-of-Fame slugger became a star with the Padres and Yankees, and San Diego made him the fourth overall pick in the 1973 MLB Draft out of the University of Minnesota. Interestingly, the Minnesota Vikings drafted him in the 17th round of the 1973 NFL Draft. Even more interesting, both professional basketball leagues drafted him in 1973, too, when the NBA’s Atlanta Hawks drafted him in the fifth round, and the ABA’s Utah Stars drafted him in the sixth round. Winfield could have played with Moses Malone (Stars), Pete Maravich (Hawks) and Fran Tarkenton (Vikings)!
1981 Topps Isiah Thomas
1982 Topps James Worthy
1982 Topps Dominique Wilkins
1982 Topps Tony Gwynn: On June 9, 1981, the Hall-of-Fame hitter was drafted in the third round of the MLB Draft by the San Diego Padres, but he was also taken in the 10th round of the 1981 NBA Draft by the San Diego Clippers! Gwynn was a two-time All-Western Athletic Conference guard with San Diego State! (The 15-time MLB All-Star chose the right sport.) (Danny Ainge was also drafted by the Blue Jays in this draft, and he would end up with a 1982 Topps Baseball rookie card of his own!)
1984 Topps Charles Barkley
1984 Topps Akeem Olajuwon
1984 Topps Michael Jordan: Thankfully, Topps came out with their 1993 Topps Archives “The Rookies” set, which had would-be rookie cards in Topps designs from their respective draft years. That brought us cool rookie cards we otherwise wouldn’t’ have seen.
1985 Topps Patrick Ewing
1985 Topps Karl Malone
1986 Fleer Len Bias: His tragic death the day after he got drafted second overall robbed the world of a Bias/Bird transfer of power into the ‘90s, but it also robbed us of this superstar’s rookie card.
1986 Fleer John Stockton: Stockton has a 1988 Fleer rookie card, but he was actually drafted in 1984, and Fleer didn’t include him for a couple years!
1986 Fleer Arvydas Sabonis: This Lithuanian legend helped the Russians win the gold medal in the 1988 Seoul Olympics, which precipitated the 1992 U.S. Dream Team. Sabonis was originally drafted by Atlanta in 1985, which was voided because he was under 21 years old. But Portland grabbed him in 1986 – and patiently waited for him to play for them in 1995!
1987 Fleer David Robinson
1990 Fleer Toni Kukoc
1999 Topps Manu Ginobili: The Argentinian superstar’s rookie cards didn’t come out until 2002, even though the Spurs drafted him in the second round of 1999. Rather than sign with the Spurs in ’99, Ginobili played in the Italian league for a couple more years, before eventually joining San Antonio in 2002, when he backed up Steve Smith.
2011 Donruss Kawhi Leonard
2011 Donruss Klay Thompson
2011 Donruss Jimmy Butler
2011 Donruss Kyrie Irving: Because of the 161-day NBA Lockout, the 2011-12 NBA season didn’t begin until Dec. 8, 2011, which not only reduced the NBA regular season down to a 66-game schedule, but it affected the release of cards. Specifically, it affected the rookies from that season, because they wouldn’t get cards with their NBA uniforms for another year. So, the true rookie cards of these players were pushed back one year.
2014 Panini Prizm Nikola Jokic
Are there some great basketball rookie cards you miss more than others? Which of these cards above would you like in your collection the most? Let us know in the comments!
⚾3 UP, 3 DOWN: 3 PLAYERS WHO HAVE FALLEN OFF
When watching your favorite baseball team play in the field, the best thing you can hear the announcer say is 3 batters up, and 3 batters down. Your pitchers and fielders were at the top of their game while the hitters struggled. In this series, we are going to look at 3 players who are in full stride right now, at the top of their game. We will also look at 3 players who are at the opposite end of the spectrum. This week we are looking at 3 players who have just not lived up to all the hype.
Jo Adell, OF, L.A. Angels: In 2020, Jo Adell was the #6 prospect in all of baseball, just 2 spots behind Adley Rutschman. He was the next great player in the Angels organization. From 2020-2023, he was called up and sent down repeatedly. His best year was 2022 with a .224 average and 8 HRs over 88 games. The thought was he never played consistently enough to hit his stride. This year, he has played consistently. Over 69 games this year, he is batting a measly .181 with 12 HRs, 33 RBIs and a -0.1 WAR for a Right Fielder. With 5 years of playing experience, I think he has shown us who he is and it is not the #6 prospect.
Spencer Torkelson, 1B, Detroit Tigers: In 2021, Spencer Torkelson was the #1 prospect in baseball. In 2022, he was on of 3 players that received a Short Print rookie card from Topps in Series 2. Since then, he has been a dud. Over 3 seasons and 323 games played, he is a career .218 hitter with 43 HRs, 140 RBIs and a negative WAR. He is also plays 1B, which is a low value position for card collectors, just above catchers. Detroit has seen enough of him this year that the optioned him back to the Triple-A club. I bought a few of his rookie cards when they were cheaper last year, but I am moving on.
James Outman, OF, L.A. Dodgers: In 2023, Outman was in consideration for NL Rookie of the Year. He finished third in the voting, behind winner Corbin Carroll (honorable mention for 3-down) and Kodai Senga of the Mets. He had solid numbers and played for a highly marketable team in the Dodgers. This year though has been a disaster. He was optioned to the Dodgers Triple-A affiliate after only playing in 36 games due to his poor .147 average, 3 HRs, 10 RBIs and -0.6 WAR. As a Center Fielder in LA, those numbers just are not good enough. As a 27-year-old, it is hard to see a future for him in LA based on the performance of his replacement, 23-year-old Andy Pages, who has better numbers in every category and is 4 years younger.
Check back next month for the latest 3-up and 3-down series. Subscribe to Patrick Imhoff’s free Substack newsletter here!
⚾HOBBY NEWS: EBAY NEWS & 5 AWESOME EBAY STATS!
eBay’s customers will now have access to the eBay vault whether they are buying or selling on eBay, grading cards with PSA or just sending cards directly to the vault.
For those PSA submissions, customers can choose to sell those cards on eBay immediately, without them having to come back to your home first, saving customers on shipping costs!
eBay also offered up some pretty awesome basketball card stats recently:
1. Interest in Victor Wembanyama collectibles peaked on the marketplace midway through the season, with global searches reaching over 3,100 times per hour from the beginning of February through the day after the Finals ended (June 18, 2024).
2. In May 2024, when Brandon Miller was a top 3 finisher in Rookie of the Year voting – searches for ‘Brandon Miller’ increased nearly 1,500% compared to October 2023, when the NBA season began.
3. In May 2024, when Jalen Brunson became the 4th player ever to score 40+ points in four straight playoff games, global searches for Jalen Brunson trading cards increased over 910% compared to the first month of the season (October 2023).
4. On June 17, 2024, when Jayson Tatum helped lead the Boston Celtics to their 18th NBA title by scoring 31 points and adding 11 assists in the series-clinching win – searches for Jayson Tatum items increased over 130% compared to the average daily search volume the week prior (June 10-June 16, 2024).
5. The top 5 active NBA players with the most items sold during the 2023-24 NBA season (September 1, 2023 to June 18, 2024) on eBay globally, were:
Victor Wembanyama
LeBron James
Anthony Edwards
Luka Doncic
Jayson Tatum
⚾HAPPY HOBBY UNIVERSE UPDATES
This is where we share some of the interesting things that have happened with our Happy Hobby universe in the past couple weeks, from our YouTube channel to the podcast, from the website to the newsletter, and from all our social channels!
Fellow Happy Hobbyist Ken Santopietro shared this interesting tip about sending cards in for grading:
“First, put an empty penny sleeve into a Card Saver. and leave about 1/2-inch of the penny sleeve sticking out. Then slide your card (in its own sleeve) into the Card Saver and it glides in without a problem! Then pull the empty penny sleeve out. Voila! I've never seen anyone advise this. I hope it makes sense.”
It does make sense, Ken, and thanks for sending that in! Excellent!
⚾HAPPY HOBBY POLL
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Have a Happy Hobby!
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Wow, think about the card Topps Could make for Dave Winfield: Quad jersey rookie card with Padres, Vikings, Hawks and Stars. That would be sweet. Well done on all the research on these "lost" rookie cards.
Really cool piece about cards that never were, well done! Mind-boggling to think about some of them. The Sabonis in ‘86 Fleer really got me, since it almost seems like a different era when he actually showed up.
Great choices by Patrick, I’ve had my share of fantasy frustration with all 3 of those guys. Thanks for sharing, fellas!