1993 Topps Beam Team Miller/Barkley/Drexler (Front)
1993 Topps Beam Team Miller/Barkley/Miller (Back)
By "Cool"… I really mean cool with no parenthesis. That laser background was awesome back in the day for those oh so important yearbook photos and it's still pretty sweet today. Sure, that's only one blogger's not so humble opinion, but Topps liked the design as well. The Beam Team inserts were popular in both the higher-end Stadium Club and base Topps sets during the mid-90's.
The above card is from the '93 Topps set and features Clyde Drexler, Charles Barkley and Reggie Miller. That's not too shabby of a trio. These Beam Team cards were inserted into Series 2 packs at a modest ratio of 1:18. So they're not the most rare cards in the hobby, but they are fun. All of the usual suspects are included in this set: Jordan, Ewing, O'neal, Robinson, etc, and many of these cards can be added to collections for right around $.99. So not only is this a fun set with a totally rad design, it's also affordable.
Happy collecting and… "Enjoy Every Bounce of the Ball".
In light of the BCS National Championship game being played tonight, I thought the question of monetary payment for collegiate student-athletes was fitting. I would argue that the student-athlete is already receiving numerous benefits monetarily, academically and athletically through the scholarships they have the opportunity to take advantage of. Sir Charles gives his opinion in the video below. What's yours?
The 1984 NBA Draft is considered by many basketball fans to be the best draft in NBA history. It was littered with high-profile players coming out of college like Phi Slamma Jamma's Akeem Olajuwon, Kentucky's Sam Bowie and North Carolina's Michael Jordan and Sam Perkins. The draft also featured future Hall of Famers John Stockton and "Sir" Charles Barkley. There were also some great roll players that came out of the '84 draft too like Kevin Willis, Otis Thorpe, Michael Cage, Alvin Robertson and Jerome Kersey. Any NBA GM would drool over the opportunity to put a roster together just from the prospects that were in the '84 draft class.
Filip Bondy captures the headlines as well as the back stories that helped shape this iconic draft through his book, Tip Off. The book is a basketball fan's guide to the collegiate events and player personnel moves that led up to the draft and eventually shaped the landscape of the late 80's and 90's NBA. Bondy does a great job of making the reader feel as if he/she is in the "war rooms" with the NBA GM's as they forever changed the paths of their franchises.
The author goes into great detail with the decision making process of players, scouts, GM's and Owners. Although the outcomes from that draft are already history, I still found myself on the edge of my seat wondering which teams were going to draft which players. One can't help but scream out, "No Portland, don't do it!". Obviously referring to the Trailblazers selecting Sam Bowie with the second over-all pick just ahead of Michael Jordan, but why did Portland pick Bowie over Jordan? That might be one of the biggest draft blunders ever looking back at their careers, but there were a number of logical circumstances that led to that fateful decision. Bondy gets into the heart of that decision and so much more.
The Blazer's predicament with the second overall pick is just the tip of the iceberg in Tip Off. Whether you're a fan of collegiate or professional basketball, you'll get something out of this informative and entertaining book. I encourage anyone looking for a little NBA history lesson to pick this book up (click here). It's a fun, fast and easy read. Anyone who has read the book or has any thoughts on the 1984 NBA Draft, I would love to hear your thoughts.
- Filip Bondy is currently a sports columnist for the NY Daily News and has a blog called, The Daily Blahg.
Charles Barkley Vs. Godzilla. That's right. Nike ran a very successful ad campaign featuring "Sir Charles" battling the infamous Godzilla, or is Charles the infamous one? Nonetheless, the campaign was entertaining and successful for both Charles and Nike. Nike utilized TV commercials, sneakers, hats, T-shirts and several posters you can find throughout this post to promote its sports apparel lines. Barkley may not have been the NBA's best player during his playing career, but he was easily one of the NBA's most outspoken and controversial stars. To this day, many basketball fans take what Charles has to say seriously as he is not afraid to speak his mind.
(Nike, "I am not a role model" TV Commercial)
Despite being a controversial figure, "Sir Charles" was one of Nike's most successful spokespersons, or more likely, it's because of that controversy that helped propel the off the court success of Charles and the Nike. If Michael Jordan was the seemingly clean cut corporate American spokesperson, then Barkley was his polar opposite. He played the villain role for the NBA and Nike, and played it well.
Charles was one of my favorite players during his career, and is today one of my favorite TV personalities today as an NBA analyst for TNT. He had plenty of game and was certainly a factor in the NBA's resurgence during the late 80's and early 90's golden years. "The Mound Round of Rebound" averaged huge numbers over his sixteen year career filling it up with 22.1 points/game, 11.7 rebounds/game and 3.9 assists/game. To go along with Charles' eleven NBA All-Star appearances, he was also the '93 NBA MVP. Barkley had a distinguished NBA career that also featured a trip to the '93 NBA Finals, two Olympic Gold Medals ('92 & '96), and a spot on the NBA's 50 at 50 Greatest Players list.
Aside from a great playing career, Barkley's poster career is pretty impressive as well. "The Battle of the Century" Nike poster is not your normal sports poster. Nike definitely had a little fun with this one. I really like the entire Godzilla campaign that Nike introduced in 1992. I don't think there's a better comparison for a player like Barkley who himself was a monster on the court.
There's no question that this was a great marketing campaign for the creative ad wizards over at Nike. Instead of shying away from a controversial and abrasive personality, Nike embraced Barkley and used his personality to its advantage. I should know. I bought a pair of the Nike Air Max CB 2's back in the day partially because of the innovative Barkley Vs. Godzilla campaign. It didn't hurt that Nike made quite a technologically sound and comfortable sneaker either. Here's the TV commercial that started the "Battle of the Century" campaign off.
