Card of the Day: 1975-76 Topps Portland Trail Blazers Team Checklist

This is now, by far, the oldest Trail Blazers card I own. The back states who 8 of the players are and I think I figured out the rest.

#10 is Phil Lumpkin who spent his rookie year with the Blazers after being drafted in the second round out of Miami University. He was traded to Phoenix Suns for the 1975-76 season and was waived the year after. He did have a card in this set as a Phoenix Sun.

#19 is Lenny Wilkens. He retired after the 1974-75 season and did not have a card in this set.

#27 is John Johnson who only played 9 games in 1975 for Portland before he was traded to the Cavs for Steve Hawes.

#4 is Greg Smith near the end of his career. He was waived on 11/7/75 after just one game played that season, his final NBA game.

I believe the coach was Jack McCloskey. Which one of the two pictured was him, I don't know.

By the way, Big Contest Tomorrow!!

Bill Walton Trifecta

Here's a few Bill Walton cards I picked out of the dollar cards at Hoopla Sports Cards in SW Portland. I don't particularly like Bill Walton. In fact I'd prefer muting the TV when he's commentating an NBA game. But his cards just draw me in because he represents the 1970's for the local favorite sports club in these parts. My Blazer collection has to be close to 300 cards now, and I only have 5 Waltons.

Loot: Care of Stats on the Back

Last month, Mark over at Stats on the Back generously gave away thousands and thousands of cards to dozens of collectors. Everyone had their own wants and needs, and Mark even found some cards that I wanted. He sent me a stack of Strawberry, most of which I didn't have yet since my collection is still young. He also sent over several Trail Blazers cards, which is the only team collection I have, from any sport. And to top it off, he included a 1969 Topps card to go towards my set I'm putting together. Sweet 40 year old card. Check it out here on my other blog. Even though Mark really doesn't expect anything in return, I'm sure most of us had no problem expressing our gratitude by returning the favor by sending something back. I never seem to have more than a few cards off of people's want list, but I managed to find some needs for his Allen & Ginter collection and Hall of Famer collection. Thanks Mark!