1992-1993 UPPER DECK HOLOGRAM SET-MICHAEL JORDAN,BARKLEY,ISIAH THOMAS,KEMP,ONEAL

 The set came in a special edition box with a large NBA hologram sticker along with the details of the set on the front; 36-card set including Jordan, O’Neal, Barkley, Ewing, Mourning and Miner. The back of the box had the checklist with an Upper Deck’s NBA hologram.

There are 36 cards, 38 if you count the checklist and binder offer cards, and it was made up of 27 team MVP players and 9 Future MVP players. So each team’s (at the time) top player was included along with a batch of top rookies from the 1992 NBA Draft.

It is strange to look through the cards now, there are few who are Hall of Famers, a collection of players who had solid careers, a group of players who were just decent on non playoff contenders  teams and even a few who some collectors might have to look up.

Charles Barkley tops the list of favorites in the 1990'w. He was at the height of career in 1993, he was the Regular Season MVP after leading my hometown Suns to an NBA best 62-20 record and in to the NBA Finals against the dreaded Chicago Bulls. Some of the others to grace the “favorites” from the set include Michael Jordan, Larry Johnson and Shawn Kemp.

The backs of the cards had a write up about the player, and included special events or records. Both the front and backs have horrible 1990s designs and team colors. 

 The Future MVP set was just a grab of the top drafted players from the Lottery picks along with the undrafted feel-good story Lloyd Daniels. Some they were pretty  dead on like Shaq, Zo and Robert Horry but they were off with Gugs, Laettner and Baby Jordan and Lloyd Daniels. 

To save people the time of a search, Lloyd Daniels was considered a huge talent coming out of high school in the mid-1980s yet he couldn’t read. He was recruited to UNLV, went to community college for a couple of months before getting busted buying drugs, tripped around a couple of minor league basketball leagues, got shot in the chest on a drug debt (the bullet is still in his shoulder), got signed by the Spurs in 1992 and shot (no pun intended) out of the gates and ripped it up before proving he was a streaky player who was just at the edge of being useful in the NBA, stuck it out with 6 NBA teams over 7 seasons and somehow made his career last for almost 20 years playing in Europe, South America and a myriad of minor league teams around the world along with as many drug rehab visits.

This set is a perfect example of collecting in the 1990s when holograms, foil, ugly inserts and huge print runs ran the market.