This story first appeared in SLAM 250.
I ponder if my love for accumulating comes from the satisfaction gained from realizing that every part is so as and accounted for. That the numbers line up and every part slots into place. The truth that each SLAM problem ever launched has a quantity, and this quantity represents a date on the basketball timeline appeals to me. I’m a weirdo. Don’t choose me.
By way of problem numbers, our final milestone was after we hit you with the Iverson/Jordan double whammy on Problem 200, August 2016. Within the eight years which have handed since, issues have modified—not essentially in drastic methods, however there are adjustments nonetheless. Against this, after we hit our first main landmark, Problem 50, again in 2001, the adjustments that had occurred since our conception in 1994 had been wild.
The web had immensely modified the way in which we consumed basketball info. Salaries had advanced from weighty to astronomical. Streetball had infested our DVD collections and the saggy vogue period was about to get actual. Very actual. One factor remained, although. Michael Jordan was our basketball god.
It was becoming, then, that one of the crucial iconic MJ moments ought to inhabit the entrance web page of our fiftieth drop. It was the notorious free-throw line jam, the Windy Metropolis model—the White Cements…Solely we did it completely different. I’m not solely speaking concerning the three alternate covers, I’m speaking concerning the never-seen-before digicam angles. Our quick however vital stint within the recreation meant editors Russ Bengtson and Tony G had constructed a stable relationship with legendary NBA photographer Nat Butler. Nat has taken (and continues to take) a few of the most iconic photos in basketball historical past. To place it plainly, you doubtless rock his pics on tees, submit them in your feed and select them as your background. The (probably) unlikely friendship that our forefathers made with Nat meant that he granted entry to—and permission to make use of—beforehand unseen photographs of one of the crucial vital moments in Mike’s profession. The outcome was a becoming cowl sequence for our fiftieth problem.
The “acquainted however completely different” factor of the SLAM 50 covers epitomizes these early SLAM years. Supplying you with one thing you thought you knew, however making you look twice. Reminding us that every part adjustments, whereas one way or the other staying the identical. All executed chaotically however completely. The whole lot slotting into place. Numbered within the basketball timeline.
