The 1991-92 Hoops set was one of the largest ever, trying to cover every aspect of the game. The set was also over-produced, really limiting its value. Hoops began making slight adjustments the following year. Production was adjusted from about a million ’91-92 sets to about 617,000 ’92-93 sets. Also, Hoops reduced the number of cards in the set by a hundred, from 590 to 490. But they kept the team cards subset, but they made a neat change this year. Instead of showing a few players in a game setting, they placed the players in front of a background of their home city. Really neat idea.
Here we see a few members of the Washington Bullets (Harvey Grant, David Wingate, A. J. English, Larry Stewart and Ralph Sampson) in front of the U.S. Capitol. The red, white and blue of the card give it a patriotic feel. Thank goodness the card looks nice, the Bullets needed it because they were 25-57 the previous season. But as the card mentions, there was so much hope here! Pervis Ellison won the Most Improved Player award. Larry Stewart, a rookie, made the All-Rookie Second Team. And they had the sixth pick in the NBA draft. So how did that 1992-93 season go for them? Would you believe they got even worse?! 22-60, ouch! It didn’t get too much better…21-61 in the ’94-95 season. 19-63 in 2000-01, 15-67 in 2023-34….there has to be a joke in here about the Washington’s win-loss ratio and how much people like D.C. politicians in here somewhere. I’m kidding a little bit. There were seasons where Washington topped 50% and came close to a 60% win-loss percentage.
Hope you enjoyed! Remember to be grateful for every card in your collection, even the commons. It’s fun to put them in historical context and see how things played out in the future!
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