In 1996, the NBA named its 50 greatest players of all time to honor the fiftieth anniversary of the league. A couple years after that I decided to collect signed cards of all fifty players, knowing that it was going to be a time-consuming and expensive quest — considering that, at the time, one of the players named was deceased (“Pistol” Pete Maravich).
I contacted friends, friends of friends, and dealers from all over the country in my two year adventure to get the ones that I didn’t already have (which was most of them). I’ve upgraded a few of them over the years having acquired their signatures in person but, in the end, I’ve got ’em all.
The most difficult one? Easily, Bill Russell. It wasn’t until Upper Deck released its Legendary Signature series with him on it that I was able to complete the full set.
The fifty players are:
What do you think?