This story first appeared in SLAM 250.
I ponder if my love for amassing 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 difficulty 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 difficulty numbers, our final milestone was once we hit you with the Iverson/Jordan double whammy on Difficulty 200, August 2016. Within the eight years which have handed since, issues have modified—not essentially in drastic methods, however there are modifications nonetheless. In contrast, once we hit our first main landmark, Difficulty 50, again in 2001, the modifications that had occurred since our conception in 1994 have been wild.
The web had immensely modified the best way we consumed basketball data. Salaries had developed from weighty to astronomical. Streetball had infested our DVD collections and the dishevelled style period was about to get actual. Very actual. One factor remained, although. Michael Jordan was our basketball god.
It was becoming, then, that probably the most 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 totally different. I’m not solely speaking in regards to the three alternate covers, I’m speaking in regards to the never-seen-before digicam angles. Our quick however vital stint within the recreation meant editors Russ Bengtson and Tony G had constructed a strong relationship with legendary NBA photographer Nat Butler. Nat has taken (and continues to take) a number of the most iconic photos in basketball historical past. To place it plainly, you probably rock his pics on tees, put up them in your feed and select them as your background. The (presumably) unlikely friendship that our forefathers made with Nat meant that he granted entry to—and permission to make use of—beforehand unseen photographs of probably the most vital moments in Mike’s profession. The outcome was a becoming cowl sequence for our fiftieth difficulty.
The “acquainted however totally different” ingredient 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 modifications, whereas by some means staying the identical. All executed chaotically however completely. The whole lot slotting into place. Numbered within the basketball timeline.
