KO Rob Levels Up My Blazers Collection

NIB: New In Box 

Reader of the blog and regular contest-participant KO Rob sent me a bunch of Blazers this spring. Like a whole bunch. He literally increased my collection by a percentage well into the double digits. (Note: I did not actually calculate this.) Of course, the pièce de résistance was this wonderful Clyde Drexler Starting Lineup figure. It's from 1992 (I love the authentic Kay-Bee Toys price sticker) and shows Drexler in a uniform for the partial season where the Blazers switched to the all caps BLAZERS font in black for their home uniform. The unis were deemed too illegible, and the design was tweaked before the season was over with larger letters in red. The result ended up being their uniform design for the next decade, before they changed the font and committed once again to black lettering.

The figure makes a nice companion to my card show purchase from a couple years ago, which features rookie style Drexler and two (!) trading cards. I can't guarantee that I won't free these Clydes from their plastic prisons, but for now they stay up on the wall like this.

As previously mentioned, there were a lot cards to sort through. I just picked a small handful to show here. Andre Miller is here on a serial numbered (to 499) early Panini Prestige card. These throwback unis were great, and I wish they would bring them back.

Brian Grant was a warrior on the court and has been a warrior in the field of Parkinson's awareness and knowledge. This is a good read on his journey.

The Finest!

Fred Jones of the Ducks slips in here. This fits into my Oregon collection, of course, but Jones is also from the Portland area and played for the Blazers for a spell.

I always liked these oddball sized cards (think Fleer Extra Bases and NFL Gameday). I need to finish off this (team) set.

Kenny Anderson has all kinds of weird feelings about these '90s cards.

This card is translucent but is not entirely clear. It's the rare card that scans a lot better than it actually looks.

 

We head into vintage territory with stylish LaRue Martin. "Vintage territory" just means the '70s, by the way, for a franchise that was born in 1970.

Caption contest?

The legend.

Mark Bryant is represented here on the always classy Flair card.

Father of Klay and Laker-identifier. Thompson had the misfortune of not being big enough as the ideal NBA center in his day, and also had to follow in the footsteps of broken Bill Walton. His crossover into Lakers territory was never forgiven in my household, though.

No lengthy Blazers post here is complete without a Sabas card.

Time is running out!

With another NBA Draft in the books, Biggie Swanigan is going to have his work cut out for him if he wants to carve out a role with next season's Blazers.

And speaking of future Blazers, Gary Trent's son -- a star at Duke they call Gary Trent Jr. -- was acquired by Portland after he was drafted in the second round. It would be fun to see him earn a meaningful spot on the team, if anything for nostalgic purposes.

Great!

A greater than great set of cards from @Lost_Collector 

I like to say that every trade I've made through the blog over the years has been great, but certainly there are occasions where something I get back is a little more... great. This is probably one of those teams. Sometimes I struggle to find an overarching theme when I want to show off a bunch of cards I got in the mail, so let's just say this group of Cardinals and Blazers was G-R-R-REAT, Tony the Tiger style.

In his age 39 year, Carlos Beltran is still very productive when healthy, so he's been a name that's been bandied about in trade talks. I'd have to say that I wouldn't mind seeing him back in St. Louis, with his name tossed in Mike Matheny's daily lineup raffle.

It's easy to get wistful when you see a nice Brandon Roy card, but the guy did accomplish quite a bit in his brief career. The Blazers haven't had many 3-time All-Stars in their team's history -- only four others accomplished this in a Portland uniform.

Jim Edmonds was talking about injuring his unnaturally huge oblique muscles on the air during a game the other day. Talk about a humblebrag.

Meyers Leonard just re-upped with the Blazers for another 4 seasons, so the team that made the surprising playoff run will be largely in tact come next fall. This is a good thing. Hopefully this enormous 3 point shooter will stay healthy all season.

Here's a lefty swing even Jimmy could envy. I assume Stan's oblique muscles were made out of weapon's grade titanium alloy.

I've never been more tempted to buy a Topps Now card than I was this past weekend after Adam Wainwright threw a shutout on the day the entire 2006 World Series team (give or take a Carpenter) was in house to celebrate their tenth anniversary. Which is to say, I was just slightly more tempted than I am to walk out into the street in front of a speeding bus.

Obliques, Achilles... why do I know so much about strangers' limbs and muscles and tendons? Sports are weird.

Here's hoping that Wesley Matthews comes back stronger than ever next season, even though he'll be wearing the wrong uniform once again.

Thanks again to The Lost Collector, who may be intrigued to know that I own two distinct pairs of New York Knicks themed socks. Throwbacks, of course.