1992-1993 Upper Deck Basketball High Series

Here's a pack of Hoops cards to honor the Celtics' return to relevance. Doc Rivers was my favorite player when I was a kid, so I was rooting for the Green. Not really rooting hard enough to watch any of the games, but I was rooting in spirit. 92-93 Upper Deck is one of the best overall basketball card sets ever made. The great design, the Shaq rookie and Trade card, and the ridiculous 510 card checklist just makes it an all-timer. This is a high series pack so pretty much everything can be found in here including Larry Bird Heroes cards and a 15,000 point club insert. I found one for a buck and a half, which is a bargain at half the price. Let's check it out.

90 Checklist 1-90
79 Rex Chapman
173 Todd Lichti
166 Duane Ferrell
224 Anthony Bonner
232 Rick Fox
PC6 Mark Aguirre 15000 Point Club
416 J.R Reid
389 Trent Tucker
374 Seattle Supersonics
413 Doc Rivers
510 Birdman and Agent 23
433 Dominique Wilkins All Star
474 Shaquille O'Neal Top Prospect
463 Latrell Sprewell Top Prospect

So I sing the praises of this set and the first card is a checklist. Some early shenanigans were going on here as we see the 1a NBA Draft trade card for the Shaq rookie that Upper Deck wasn't allowed to release until 1993, as well as 32a Magic Johnson and 33a Larry Bird cards. Apparently these are short prints, although I'm not sure what the plain ol' boring cards 32 and 33 were. Let's go through the rest of the cards one by one since it's Sunday and we don't have anything better to do, shall we?

Rex Chapman - Never liked him. I guess he was a decent player.

Todd Lichti - Awesome rainbow uniform and the crazy hair.

Duane Ferrell - Another favorite of mine. A Hawk who played at Georgia Tech, what's not to like?

Anthony Bonner - I don't remember anything about the guy. He's apparently a high school basketball coach now.

Rick Fox - Mr. Pretty Boy. The Tarheel won some rings with the Lakers, married Vanessa Williams, screwed that up and is now an actor.

Mark Aguirre - Woohoo, got an insert card! Aguirre was a beast with Dallas, it's a shame no one remembers that anymore.

J.R Reid - Another Tarheel in the pack. He got picked by the Hornets back when choosing a player from the local college neamt North Carolina instead of LSU.

Trent Tucker - Trent has a rule named after him from a last second shot he took with the Knicks. Do you have a rule named after you?

Seattle Supersonics - Since there were only about 350-400 players in the league at the time, Upper Deck had to do some serious padding to get the set up to 510 cards. This subset isn't a team checklist, it's a team history card. It's got Gary Payton on the front and a bunch of factoids on the back. The Seattle Sonics pretty much are history now, at least once the lawsuit is settled.

Doc Rivers - Has an NBA title under his belt now. Literally, he keeps the trophy in his pants. Ok, not really, but I sure would.

Birdman and Agent 23 - There are no words for this card.

Dominique Wilkins All Star - There are only two types of photos on 'Nique cards. He's either dunking or shooting a free throw. This card has him doing both.

Shaquille O'Neal Top Prospect - SHAQ!!! Ok, it's not his technical for real official rookie card, but it's a first year Shaq card so who cares.

Latrell Sprewell Top Prospect - Spree was a nice player other than that whole "crazy strangler"thing.

That was a damn good pack to close out the season with. Only six more months 'till the Hawks drop under .500 again!