1972 Wilt VS. Kareem...

[JollyElm]

In the 'This comes from completely out of the blue' category, I present you with the epic battle of who appeared on more cards in the 1972 Topps NBA set, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar or Wilt Chamberlain.

Summary: They both obviously have their own individual cards, so there's nothing new there, but dig a little deeper and you find they both co-star brilliantly on each other's All-Star cards. Pretty cool. They also share the spotlight on a pair of 'leaders' cards, Field Goal Percentage and Rebounds (no frickin' surprise there). So that's five apiece to start.

Then it gets a little interesting as Wilt 'The Stilt' has cameos on HOF'ers 'Clyde' Frazier and Jerry West cards, which is matched by Kareem as he has a go at HOF'er Spencer Haywood, and gets involved in a holy war with Bob Weiss.

So, now we're tied again...but Jabbar had an MVP season, so his mug popped up on an additional duo of 'leaders' cards, Scoring and Scoring Average (did they really need to separate those two stats??) and he pulls ahead.

But suddenly gaining on the outside is Chamberlain, as he makes a mad dash to finish strongly, appearing on four separate NBA Championship cards. Two are obvious, whereas the other two have clear clues to his identity. First, sandwiched between HOF'ers Jerry Lucas and Phil Jackson in Game #3, the number 1 is visible as well as his headband. Secondly, in Game #4 as Leroy Ellis attacks the boards following HOF'er Bill Bradley's try, you can see Wilt's heavily-taped hands as he hustles down the court. And worthy of note, Chamberlain looks nothing short of a Colossus on the "Lakers are NBA Champs" card.

Final score: Wilt Chamberlain 11, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar 9. The crowd cheers as it leaves the auditorium...



Food for thought: Had the Lakers not vanquished the Bucks in the Western Conference Finals, it would've been Kareem appearing on all of those playoffs cards instead (and maybe my Knicks would've fared better, considering **Cool fact alert** their entire starting lineup was eventually elected to The Hall of Fame).

Additional food for thought: The 1972-73 Topps set consists of 264 cards. With Wilt appearing on 11 of them, that means he shows up on an astounding 4.16% of the cards in the set. That has got to be a record for a large mainstream offering. Are there other examples with anywhere near that amount of coverage? (Here's where the goofballs are going to bring up the 1959 Fleer Ted Williams set, or the Bond Bread Jackie Robinson set. Yeah, you're real witty. ) Babe Ruth has a good amount of 'special' cards in 1962, and Hank Aaron was certainly the star of the 1974 Topps set, but those percentages pale in comparison.

Good stuff!!