Zeke RC

This card is a bit of a break from my usual shtick.  Not so much of a pop-culture fun card, but a sports card that never was.

If I had a time machine I would of course go back and win a huge lotto.  Part of my winnings would go to seeing that Topps never stopped making basketball cards after their 1981-82 set.  If I'm not mistaken they did so because the interest just wasn't there for basketball cards at the time.  But, looking beck they pretty much missed out on the golden era of the NBA... the 1980's.  After 1981-82 there weren't any major brand basketball cards until Star acquired the license in 1983.  But, Star was not on the scale as companies like Topps, Fleer and Donruss.  They didn't distribute in the traditional manner with boxes of wax packs.  Their cards were in team bags and sold through dealers and at arenas.  It wasn't until the 1986-87 season did another major card brand (Fleer) start making basketball cards and Topps didn't get back in until the 1991-92 season just in time to cash in on the Shaquille O'Neal mania.  Thus, my idol, Isiah Thomas, was robbed of a true rookie card.  I've corrected that.

This card is working with the idea that Topps made a "Traded" set for their 1981-82 basketball set like they do with baseball to be able to have cards of guys on their new teams and the season's rookies. 

I've made two other Isiah Thomas cards before this one but I'm glad I made this particular one now with my skills and know-how being further along than before. 

On the card's front there's a great pic of Zeke during his rookie season.  The one thing I wish was different is the color scheme Topps chose to use for the Pistons.  It's the same as the Celtics cards and being as this photo is obviously taken from an away game at the Boston Garden it makes you think I was trying to pass off Isiah as a Celtic, which for a Bad Boys fan like myself is blasphemous.  I was excited to add Topps' all-star rookie trophy.  I loved those as a kid.  After all, Isiah DID make this all-star team as a rookie and continued to be selected an all-star for the next 11 consecutive seasons.

On to the back... I started by numbering the card "11T", the same way Topps would designate cards in their Traded sets.  A little detail was Isiah's weight.  Throughout his playing career he was listed at 180 lbs., but in the 1981-82 Pistons media guide he's listed at 1985 lb.  Let's assume these cards would have been started after the trade deadline so there wouldn't be a way to list the completed stats from the season, so with that notion I chose to list Isiah's collegiate stats from his two years at Indiana University.  This card is the first PCb. card to list statistics.  Then came some collegiate highlights and the mention of the all-star selection.

My favorite part is the cartoon art.  It's the same as on the reverse of the Magic Johnson card just of course with the years changed.  I think if you're a card nerd like myself these details are really important to have.

1981-82 Topps

'88 Finals Game 6

I've mentioned a few times that while the majority of my cards are done with designs inspired by older baseball card sets I'm a basketball guy at heart.  It's just that baseball cards are more nostalgic to me personally as they were more readily available than basketball cards were.  My hero growing up was Isiah Thomas.  My first born son is named Isiah.  It's that serious.

If I could go back in time and change things in the card collecting hobby one would definitely be Topps' hiatus from basketball basketball cards from 1982-83 through 1991-92.  If they hadn't there could have possibly been a card commemorating Isiah Thomas' heroic efforts in Game 6 of the 1988 NBA Finals when he scored 25 points in the game's third quarter on an ankle that would have probably seen many of today's stars airlifted right out of the arena.  It was one of the greatest things in sports I've ever witnessed.

This card is of course modeled after the 1988 Topps baseball Record Breakers subset.  For whatever reason I just love doing record breaker cards.  The photo used is actually one from that particular game.

What SHOULD Have Been

The motivation behind my cards, outside of being a creative outlet for me, is to create tangible vintage inspired trading cards for different movies, TV shows and miscellaneous pieces of popular culture that never got trading card immortalization.  I try to make cards that, if they had existed, I would have spent my hard earned allowance or bottle deposit collection money (it’s an MI thing) at the counter of the closest party store for as many packs as I could afford.  These are cards that I would have wanted to own, to collect, flip through and organize in my childhood bedroom.

The above card I not only would have loved to have owned as a kid… I should have owned as a kid.  I should have feverishly shuffled through packs of 1991-92 NBA Hoops Series 2 in hopes of pulling this card.  Years later I should have been able to seek out PSA 10 Gem Mint graded copies as well as autographed copies of this card for my collection.  Not only this NBA Hoops card, but versions of this card from all of the other brands of basketball cards.  Not to mention the other cool merchandise like posters, jerseys, t-shirts, cereal boxes, Starting Line-Up figures, magazine covers and the list goes on.  You see, Isiah Thomas was my boyhood idol.  I’ve been collecting everything and anything related to him nonstop since 1988.  At this point I could basically curate a museum of Isiah Thomas memorabilia.

There are a lot of really cool custom cards out there for sports cards that didn't get made for one reason or another.  This card is a bit different.  It's not a late season trade, an unheralded rookie or a guy who didn't see much playing time and could hardly justify making a card for.  This is a card of a guy who was never on a historic team but had every right in the world to be.

In 1988 the U.S. Olympic men's basketball team took bronze in the Summer Olympics is Seoul.  Up and through that Olympic Games the U.S. team was comprised of amateurs while other countries were using professionals.  Starting with the 1992 Barcelona games USA Basketball has since sent NBA pros to represent them every four years in the Summer Olympic.

The team that went to Barcelona, Spain in 1992 was dubbed "The Dream Team".  It's without a shadow of a doubt the greatest team ever assembled and anyone who says any different is just being a contrarian.  Eleven individuals of this twelve man roster are in the basketball Hall of Fame, all except Christian Laettner, the lone collegiate. Three of the four coaches have been elected to the Hall of Fame as individuals, and the team as a whole was enshrined in 2017.

As legendary as that team is for whom was a part of it it's as infamous for the one man that was not.  You simply cannot entertain a Dream Team discussion of any depth without talking about the blackballing of Isiah Thomas.  In 1991 when the team was selected you could say there were only three players to have more of a claim to be on that team than Isiah Thomas.  There was Magic Johnson and Larry Bird who had led the Lakers and Celtics respectively to eight of the ten championship in the previous decade.  Then there was Michael Jordan who was arguably the most recognizable athlete in the world at the time.  As much as the '92 Olympics were about restoring U.S. basketball pride they were equally as instrumental in marketing the National Basketball Association on a global stage.  Michael Jordan was a marketing machine.  The team needed him.  The problem was he refused to participate if Isiah was a part of the team due to their intense professional rivalry.  As deserving as Isiah was of the honor of being named to that team, with that type of ultimatum it's pretty hard to go against "His Airnesses" wishes.

The bottom line is that it's criminal that cooler heads couldn't have prevailed.  I get that Isiah didn't do himself any favors in his quest to keep Michael Jordan and the Bulls down as long as possible, much like the Celtics had done to Detroit all those years before.  The walk off in the 1991 Eastern Conference Finals was most likely the final nail in Isiah's Olympic coffin.  Isiah has said looking back that he regretted leading the Pistons off of the floor without congratulating the Bulls in the closing seconds of Game 4 of the ECF, but to play devil's advocate, I can understand how it went down with that Bad Boys team being a prideful group and through the media Michael and his guys were basically shitting on what took the Pistons years of blood, sweat and tears to accomplish.  What makes the 1992 snub even more of a sour story is when you consider that Isiah also missed out on an Olympic medal in 1980 when the U.S. boycotted the summer games that were being hosted in Moscow due to the Soviet's invasion of Afghanistan.

Most of my cards have an air of comedic parody to them, like a Michael Scott basketball card for example.  Not this one.  I was serious when making this card.  I wanted to bring justice to Isiah's Olympic snub the best and only way I really could.  This card is in total homage of what should have been.

The picture is from a photo shoot for the 1994 FIBA World Championships which saw a team dubbed "Dream Team II" win the tournaments gold medal.  Isiah was named to this team but, as if cursed, he didn't get to compete due to an Achilles Tendon tear in the last month of the 1993-94 NBA season, Isiah's last season before he retired from playing.

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