After the first all-basketball set, 1948 Bowman, the Bowman name disappeared from basketball cards until Topps revived it with ’96-97 Bowman’s Best cards. This Kevin Garnett is #31 from the 1998-99 Bowman’s Best set, the third consecutive year of this brand. Topps was really consistent with their Bowman’s Best cards, and changes year-to-year were made gradually and carefully. Because the changes were slow and deliberate, it’s fun to compare these early sets and watch the small ways that Bowman’s Best changed. These first three sets were all 125 cards. But In previous years, in addition to base cards and rookies, there was an additional subset, Throwbacks in 1996-97 and Best Performance in 1997-98. But in 1998-99 Bowman’s Best, there were only 100 veterans and 25 rookies. They eliminated the extra subset.
Also interesting when looking at 1998-99 Bowman’s Best is seeing how the design shows that slow gradual change between sets as well. In this set, veterans had gold foil and rookies had silver foil, but this has connections to the past. In their first set, the veterans had gold borders and rookies had silver. 1998-99 Bowman’s Best was also the start of a border on the top and bottom. plays into larger design changes. The original 1996-97 set design with borders on the left and bottom was abandoned pretty quickly and there was no border in ’97-98. But after introducing the top/bottom border, this would later be texturized to resemble a basketball court for the following year ’99-2000.
Some notable things on the reverse. Bowman’s Best always presented statistics in interesting ways. They continued experimenting in ’98-99 where they gave rare stats (like averaging rebounds and blocks per 48 minutes and showing points per field goal attempt), but they also grouped seasons before ’97-98 into one row. They also continued the tradition of having a simple summary, calling it “Best Talent” in ’98-99, reminiscent of he “Super Skill” in their first set. These small statements are kind of pointless. At least ’96-97 had the more interesting “Super Stat” as well. This Kevin Garnett card clearly is stressing that he has great versatility for his size based on the “Best Talent” summary and blurb below.
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