What are your top 5 best player checklists for the 90s?
Posted: Sat Jul 15, 2023 9:09 am
if you take value out the equation, what players do you feel should be top 5 and honorable mentions.
If we do careers, Kobe is easily top 2 as his cards extend well into the panini era, not missing the exquisite era in between, and he had case hits along the way. In this thread, the cut off is 1999-00. I repeat, this has nothing to do with value of a particular player, favorites etc. no feelings involved in this. Just strength of checklists. And we can do individual player breakdowns if needed.
1. JORDAN
He was in most insert sets in the years he played outside of young player inserts, big men sets, and some specialized stat type inserts (Blocks etc). He has to be 1. This doesn’t need a comprehensive set-for-set break down. He’s 1.
2. Penny.
He came into the league during the early stages of inserts, hyped and ready from the gate. Because of this, he was in almost all the box hits, multibox, half case, case hits in that mid 90s period that is often underrated. I have him above Shaq because he did have autos. That SPX auto, UD3, etc were a big deal. While his hobby hype started to die down in the 98-99 season, he was still in some key sets towards the end of the decade and on most of the 97-98 case hits.
3. Shaq
You can easily argue him being #2. He’s in 92 beam team, scoring kings as well as most of the case hits along the way and his hype didn’t fade towards the end of the decade. I have penny slightly higher but there were a lot of really good box hits and multi box big man sets that shaq was in. Towers of power being one of them. Being a center, he was excluded in guard centric sets but because he was always in the top 3-4 in scoring, he was featured in the scoring type sets.
4. Grant Hill.
He was in everything. Penny has an extra year on him but for the most part, he was in all the same sets as Penny excluding autos as he was signed to Skybox. He was the chase in the first year of Autographics and has a few Grant hill exclusive sets to add to that. His Hobby hype started to fizzle down towards the end of the decade like Penny
5. Iverson
He gets the nod over KOBE. You can even argue Marbury has a stronger 90s checklist than Kobe because he was absent in a lot of big 96 insert sets and Iverson was in even more sets than Marbury. 96 was the year where case hits, numbered parallels, half case hits etc became commonplace and he was in just about all of them from Thrill seekers, cut above, Scoring kings Plus. He is a rare case along with marbury (to a lesser extent), of small players who were featured in point guard centric sets like “little big men” along with high flyer dunk centric sets.
Honorable mentions Rodman, Barkley, Marbury, Kemp, Malone, KG, Kobe, Pippen, Mourning, Robinson, Ray Allen, Ewing, Eddie Jones, Walker, Damon Stoudimire, Stckhouse, Webber, Juwon Howard, Kidd
If we do careers, Kobe is easily top 2 as his cards extend well into the panini era, not missing the exquisite era in between, and he had case hits along the way. In this thread, the cut off is 1999-00. I repeat, this has nothing to do with value of a particular player, favorites etc. no feelings involved in this. Just strength of checklists. And we can do individual player breakdowns if needed.
1. JORDAN
He was in most insert sets in the years he played outside of young player inserts, big men sets, and some specialized stat type inserts (Blocks etc). He has to be 1. This doesn’t need a comprehensive set-for-set break down. He’s 1.
2. Penny.
He came into the league during the early stages of inserts, hyped and ready from the gate. Because of this, he was in almost all the box hits, multibox, half case, case hits in that mid 90s period that is often underrated. I have him above Shaq because he did have autos. That SPX auto, UD3, etc were a big deal. While his hobby hype started to die down in the 98-99 season, he was still in some key sets towards the end of the decade and on most of the 97-98 case hits.
3. Shaq
You can easily argue him being #2. He’s in 92 beam team, scoring kings as well as most of the case hits along the way and his hype didn’t fade towards the end of the decade. I have penny slightly higher but there were a lot of really good box hits and multi box big man sets that shaq was in. Towers of power being one of them. Being a center, he was excluded in guard centric sets but because he was always in the top 3-4 in scoring, he was featured in the scoring type sets.
4. Grant Hill.
He was in everything. Penny has an extra year on him but for the most part, he was in all the same sets as Penny excluding autos as he was signed to Skybox. He was the chase in the first year of Autographics and has a few Grant hill exclusive sets to add to that. His Hobby hype started to fizzle down towards the end of the decade like Penny
5. Iverson
He gets the nod over KOBE. You can even argue Marbury has a stronger 90s checklist than Kobe because he was absent in a lot of big 96 insert sets and Iverson was in even more sets than Marbury. 96 was the year where case hits, numbered parallels, half case hits etc became commonplace and he was in just about all of them from Thrill seekers, cut above, Scoring kings Plus. He is a rare case along with marbury (to a lesser extent), of small players who were featured in point guard centric sets like “little big men” along with high flyer dunk centric sets.
Honorable mentions Rodman, Barkley, Marbury, Kemp, Malone, KG, Kobe, Pippen, Mourning, Robinson, Ray Allen, Ewing, Eddie Jones, Walker, Damon Stoudimire, Stckhouse, Webber, Juwon Howard, Kidd