Description

Drafted No. 1 overall by the San Antonio Spurs in 1987, David Robinson could not immediately join the team. He owed the Navy two years of active duty after graduating from Annapolis, so his card debut had to wait as long as his NBA debut did. That delay is part of what makes this particular issue unusual: by the time collectors could buy a Robinson rookie card in 1989, he had already been an NBA property, and a familiar name to college basketball fans, for two years. The wait paid off immediately once he actually took the floor. With the addition of Robinson to the roster in 1989-90, the Spurs made the single greatest turnaround in NBA history at the time, from a 21-61 record in 1988-89 to 56-26 in 1989-90. He quickly established himself as one of the best centers in the NBA, averaging 24.3 points, 12 rebounds, and 3.9 blocked shots per game during his rookie season, and won the NBA's Rookie of the Year award. He was unanimously voted the NBA Rookie of the Year and helped San Antonio advance to the second round of the playoffs before being eliminated by the Portland Trail Blazers, and he also made his first of ten appearances in the NBA All-Star Game. The individual honors kept coming after that debut season. In his first six NBA seasons, Robinson won Rookie of the Year, MVP and Defensive Player of the Year awards, in addition to a rebounding title, a scoring crown, six All-Star bids, three selections to the All-NBA First Team and three selections to the All-Defensive First Team. But team success lagged behind his personal accolades for years. Despite continually guiding his San Antonio team to the playoffs, an NBA championship remained just out of reach until the addition of power forward/center Tim Duncan in 1997-98. "The Twin Towers," with Robinson at 7'1" and Duncan at 6'11", would guide the Spurs to the NBA title in the lockout-shortened 1998-99 season, and the Spurs won a second title with Robinson in 2002-03, his final season. By retirement, Robinson had built a Hall of Fame résumé that went well beyond the rookie hardware. He finished his career with 20,790 points (21.1 per game), 10,497 rebounds (10.6 per game) and 2,954 blocks (3.0 per game). At the time of his retirement, he ranked among the top 25 players in NBA history in career points and rebounds and was fourth all-time in blocked shots. He was named to the league's list of 50 Greatest Players in 1996 and was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 2009. This card is the No. 138 issue from Hoops' first basketball set, and its story is tied to the strange path Robinson took to the pros. The card depicts Robinson in a suit holding a Spurs jersey at his introductory news conference in San Antonio, a picture that is actually from 1987 and one of the first images of him with a Spurs jersey. It was the first time since the Pete Maravich and Calvin Murphy rookies in the 1970-71 Topps set that a player was pictured during his rookie season under such circumstances, a product of Robinson's graduation from the Naval Academy in 1987 and his two years of required service before he could set foot on an NBA court. It's that introductory-photo card that has drawn more attention as his true rookie, and Robinson's low-numbered No. 138 card in the set has always been a hit with collectors.