The Set: After their debut in 1989-90, Hoops returned in 1990-91 and began increasing the size of the set. Series I is 336 cards, 36 cards larger than the prior year and Series II is 104 cards, an increase of 52 cards. In total, the Hoops set grew by 88 cards in 1990-91. In terms of the design, Hoops kept the main elements the same. The basketball-key border remained from 1989-90. And the All-Star subset remained (these had a gold background to stand out from the gray), and so did cards of coaches. But everything was more organized. Teams and players were alphabetized by city and last name, All-Star cards were kept in a group at the very start of the set, even the coach cards were grouped together. This was much needed after the scattered organization from 1989-90. The larger number of cards is easy to explain by all of the new additions. Checklists were integrated into the set this year (recall that the checklists from 1989-90 Hoops were only available by special request).
And in the second series, Hoops began experimenting with a variety of additional cards. Current-year rookies of the eleven lottery draft picks were present (as well as a Danny Ferry rookie card, another current-year rookie). Six playoff cards were present. Twelve coach-as-player cards were a nice historical touch. An art card for each team was added, plus other small additions. In addition to the large variety of the cards, it has to be mentioned that there was large quantity in overproduction as well. Cards during this time period are often called “junk wax” and there were lots of 1990-91 Hoops cards printed. Also of note, NBA Hoops and Skybox were under the same parent company, Impel Marketing, which comes as a surprise to many. The classic design of Hoops and the futuristic graphics of Skybox seemed worlds away to many unsuspecting collectors. The addition of so many series II cards meant that cards from series I were pulled to make room during the printing process. These cards are short prints and are a bit harder to find than other cards.
The Card: The Michael Jordan All-Star card, along with all of the All-Star cards in the ’90-91 Hoops set, is a short print. They were among the cards pulled from printing to make room for Series II and are slightly more rare than other cards in the set. These cards feature the 1990 All-Star Game in Miami, and what a game that would’ve been! Michael Jordan, Larry Bird, Magic Johnson…every member of the East is now in the Hall of Fame. Moving to the reverse, we see that Jordan, “Along with Charles Barkley led East team in scoring with 17 points in 1990.” This was nothing compared to his 40 points in 1988 that you see in the statistics above. This is mentioned on the reverse as well, “Named All-Star Game MVP in 1988 after scoring 40 points for victorious East squad…Hit 17 field-goals in that game to tie an All-Star record.” Also, very important to note, there is an uncorrected error on the card! It says that Jordan “Won the slam dunk title in 1986 and 1988.” This should actually be 1987 and 1988! It seems like in this junk wax era, errors and variations are everywhere if you look closely!
The photo is great as well. There are some wonderful dunks that collectors might have already had. The Jordan rookie, the 1989-90 and 1990-91 Fleer, but how iconic is Jordan’s fadeaway jump shot. It’s nice to see that captured on a card.
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