We’re adding the Kevin Garnett base card from 1996-97 SP to our collection today. Great card of him featuring a powerful reverse slam dunk on the front. Nice rainbow hologram incorporated into the background. As the card says, in 1996-97 “Da Kid,” Kevin Garnett, was “turning into the man in Minnesota.” He had already had 28 blocks as of January 5 during that 1996-97 season. He would go on to be tied for ninth in the league for blocks.
In May of 1997, Upper Deck released its 1996-97 SP, and it was similar in many ways to the first two SP sets (or three if you count ’93-94 Upper Deck Special Edition). Still a slightly higher price for the time, at $3.99 for eight cards. Still a compact set, with only 146 cards, meaning a higher percentage of stars. Cards were still organized alphabetically by team with about five players per team. And after the base cards, like the previous year, there were twenty rookies grouped into their own subset called Premier Prospects. Lots remaining the same. A small difference was that the SP logo became even simpler with just the main components outlined in foil. But the main difference in 1996-97 was the removal of the SP Championship set. The previous two years had two sets, SP and SP Championship. SP was hobby-only and SP Championship, meant to focus on the playoffs, was retail-only. In 1995-96, SPx, a smaller die-cut set was introduced. Upper Deck must’ve felt that this was enough of a supplement, so in ’96-97, they chose to cut SP Championship, leaving only regular SP and the die-cut SPx.
Overall, the cards are very busy in design. The design of the first 126 veterans featured a rainbow foil with the SP logo running across the background. It was stronger in the lower-left corner and became more subtle towards the right. It caused the team name to sparkle a bit as well. You barely know it’s there under certain angles of light. Other angles show a large variety of colors. There are two more photos on the back, an action shot and a headshot. Stats and standard biographical info on the bottom, written text on the top. And just a touch of textured silver foil where the player’s name is seen, both on the back and the front.
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