Tim's Gauntlet: Day 4

Before I jump into today's card, I just wanted to remind everyone that I'm bending the rules a little bit on some of Tim's questions, especially these ones about favorites. I don't have any absolute favorites, so I'm just going with A favorite, and hoping that it'll suffice for the challenge.

I'm not gonna lie, I had a doozy of a card planned for today's topic of Favorite basketball card in your collection, but after hearing about Wes Unseld's departure on Tuesday, I decided to switch it out, and instead show my favorite card of Mr. Unseld:

Wes Unseld's career has been criminally underrated for decades, he was a beast in college (20.6 ppg & 18.9 rpg), and despite being only 6' 7" (though most say 6' 6" would be more accurate), dominated at the center position in the NBA for more than a decade, all while battling the likes of Wilt, Kareem, Thurmond, McAdoo, Moses, Reed, Lanier, Cowens, etc. He was of only two players to ever win Rookie of the Year and the Most Valuable Player awards in the same season (Wilt being the other), was a 5x All-Star, made it to the finals four times, winning one in '78, was also the Finals MVP in '78, is in both the Naismith Hall of Fame and the College Basketball Hall of Fame -- and yet, if you were to have asked any modern fan that's say 25yrs old or younger, before two days ago, who Wes Unseld was, I guarantee that probably 90% of them wouldn't have had a clue. And I'm not putting that all on the ignorant children, because as I've said many times in the past, the NBA has done a terrible job in educating fans about it's past, and from what I've seen in recent years, I can honestly say that I see this failing of theirs only getting worse as time progresses.

I have more than a few autographs from Wes Unseld, but this 2006-07 Press Pass Legends auto is by far my favorite, primarily because it's the only official auto of his, that I know of mind you, in which he signed it using his full first name of 'Westley'.

Oh, and in case anybody is left wondering about the doozy card that didn't get shown, well, you'll just have to wait until another day to see that one :)

Looking ahead to tomorrow, I see that challenge #5 is going to be a bit of a wild card. I primarily only collect the three major sports (and non-sports), so it looks like I'm gonna have to put the old thinking cap on in order to come up with something for day 5?


Thanks for taking a moment to look at my page.