1996-97 Hoops Basketball Forum

As I continue logging my basketball collection and adding to my Want List, I've come to this set and have some major questions about it:

1. Why would someone like Hakeem Olajuwon be left off a team set, especially a shorter insert set?
2. Why would Lakers and Spurs not be included in the insert set Olajuwon was left off of?
3. Why was Portland given an insert set?

I don't know basketball in the least, but in other sports there were notable cases where players didn't sign contracts with the card companies.  Ted Williams and a few others in the early days of Topps vs. Bowman.  I think Maury Wills for awhile.  Earl Campbell.  Matt Wieters recently. 

Possible explanation.

That's what I'm thinking as well...Olajuwon played through 01-02 and played the whole year that the set would represent, so there isn't an excuse that he was injured for most of the year, or missed most of the year for whatever reason...but it turns out he does have a card in the base set

https://www.tradingcarddb.com/ViewCard.cfm/sid/2493/cid/690533/1996-97-Hoops-63-Hakeem-Olajuwon

The Hoops brand is owned by the NBA, so they always have the license for everyone in the NBA at that time. 

There were a lot of decisions about this set that never made sense to me...like why they used a great design for series one but such a crappy design for series two.

Excuse my ignorance but as I look at it Olajuwon has 7 cards in this product including 4 inserts.

The only "team" themed insert set is Starting Five which includes a Houston card with Olajuwon and a Lakers card and Spurs card.

If the question is, why is Olajuwon not included in the series two base Houston set, my understanding has been that the series two team sets were generally guys who had been traded (Charles Barkley is Houston's only series two team member while Robert Horry and Sam Cassel who went to Phoenix in that trade are included as their only series two team members) or signed late and did not have a card in that team in series one. Some were also guys who were otherwise not included in series one but then for some reason deemed worthy to go in series two.

Just to confuse matters, series two would *sometimes* included repeats of star players who were in series one — see Grant Hill in both Detroit team sets —  I guess this was to bump up the star power of series two a bit, especially if not many big names guys were traded. (Though series two did have the rookie cards generally). 

So, in theory an Olajuwon could appear in series two as a base team card after appearing in series one but there was no guarantee.

As to why no Lakers or Spurs, I guess they had no trades/late signees/whatever that were deemed worthy of including! 

Aand a portland promo set — no idea on that one.

I was looking at the "Silver" parallel which has no Olajuwon nor Lakers nor Spurs. And I wasn't referring to team themed, just what is normally referred to any set that has a basic team structure.

Not sure if that Blazers set is the same thing as what the Sixers did in 1990, but teams often had Hoops card giveaways at their games during that decade.

I was not aware of that in '90, but in this case the Portland set is listed as an insert or related set, whereas the Sixers set is listed independently of the '90 Hoops. 

Hmm, that is interesting.

It also stops at Phoenix. Missing all the remaining (alphabetical) teams. Are we then sure that checklist is complete?

I'm not entirely sure the Silver set actually exists. I can't remember the packs, if they gave details of it. The foil is almost impossible to tell apart. On the other hand, my paper listing, compiled when the set was newish, does show that I had some I considered Silver when I had them all in hand together. My collection has not been together since 2004 so checking them now would be near impossible.

Grant Hill has a card in Series 2 because the Pistons debuted a new uniform that season. Series 1 showed the old uniform, series 2 the new one.