So, Do You Like ... Stuff?

Doug West, 1996 Skybox Quite possibly you recall a mysterious yet magical time when Kings’ forward Michael Smith was catching hot flaming balls. Now, you can believe this or not -– your call –- but other NBA players at the time enjoyed a similar experience. In order to sway your belief in what I have just mentioned, I will now post several cards as proof of my honor: Here is the patented Charles Barkley: “Ouch! This flaming hot basketball is hot!” face. And here is Dale Davis with the “I realize that this basketball is, literally, on fire. But I am going to rebound it anyway. Here goes…mother f-!” maneuver. And of course, what would a flaming hot basketball feature be without Gheorghe Muresan’s famous “I am 10 feet tall, but this comet ball still alludes me!” low post move. Which brings us back to Doug West. Now, let’s say you are the Skybox Company of basketball cards. Your ace young executive has just wowed the boardroom with her -– yes, her –- idea to feature NBA players catching f...

Michael Smith, 1996 Skybox When a flying comet that is actually a basketball comes mysteriously swooping through an indoor arena, you’d better hope that Michael Smith is around, because he will stop the comet-basketball’s violent course of action by catching it, holding onto it tightly until the comet tail disintegrates, and then he will eventually raise the basketball as one of his own children. At that point it will be safe to resume activity. If that activity is, ironically, playing basketball, you should not use the basketball that used to be a comet, because it will still be very hot. Let’s discover more about Michael Smith’s professional basketball career: A big fan of the big screen, Michael and teammate Brian Grant were featured as motion picture critics during a Kings promotion for the 1994-95 season. I am uncertain what the title of this marketing campaign was, but I imagine that it was something along the lines of: Why watch the Kings play when you could go see a movie? Bot...