Card story: PJ Brown
How P.J. Brown's 1996 Upper Deck Collector's Choice card reminded me of my earliest basketball memories
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Like many sports fans across the nation, I’ve gotten back into card collecting in the past year. I’m slowly returning to the height of my card obsession when I was getting whatever sports cards and/or Pokemon cards that I could get my hands on from 1998-2003. The only difference is how expensive the hobby has become because of the recent explosion of card value. I talked about the resurgence of the hobby (and a lot more) with Jason Howarth of Panini America on the Ball & Order podcast this week.
But now, I want to explain why I think collecting cards is important and why I do it. A couple of weeks ago, I ordered a lot of basketball cards on Ebay.1 Nothing too fancy or expensive. The whole lot of 50 cost me around $20, so I wasn’t expecting rare or valuable cards. Just hoping to get cards that I enjoy. Then, I pulled one that launched me backwards in time.
It was P.J. Brown’s card from the 1996 Upper Deck Collector's Choice (pictured above). If you’re not a fan of one of the six teams he played for, you may not remember P.J.2 He was the quintessential late 90s/early 00s role player: He earned his spot on defense, bruised opponents down low on both ends, got boards and knew where to be offensively, even if he didn’t provide much scoring.
While he was never an elite player, Brown made the All-Defensive team three times and was a key part of some good teams. Eventually, Brown won a title with the 2008 Boston Celtics at the end of the bench and his daughter, Kalani Brown, currently plays for the WNBA’s Atlanta Dream. Still, Brown’s most memorable moment came as a member of the Miami Heat in the 1997 Eastern Conference Semifinals.
Late in the fourth quarter, the Heat had the game in hand and Brown was having one of the best playoff games ever with 18 points and 12 rebounds. As Tim Hardaway took a free throw, Charlie Ward, little shit that he was,3 drove his hips into Brown’s knees in hopes of injuring him. Brown realized what was happening, saw Ward’s ass in the air and suplexed him onto a camera man. A fracas followed where the Knicks all came off the bench to fight.
The NBA suspended Brown for the rest of the series and fined him $10,000, but he and the Heat definitely got the better end of the deal. New York had to play game 6 without Patrick Ewing, Allen Houston and Charlie Ward, then had to play game 7 without Larry Johnson and John Starks.4 The Heat came back from a 3-1 deficit to win the series, thanks in part to the suspensions. Brown, being the perfect late 90s Pat Riley player, didn’t regret his actions.
“It could have been a lot worse. I could have really body-slammed him,” replied Brown when asked if he’d do it again. “If I had [been] in that position, yes, no doubt about it.”
It’s hard to overstate what this moment did to my NBA fandom as a youngster. I adored the Alonzo Mourning-Tim Hardaway era Heat, mainly because of how tough they were. After all, the only thing as cool as a dunk to a 5/6 year-old is giant men fighting. Brown flipping Ward is one of my earliest basketball memories and helped kickstart my obsession with the NBA.
Shortly after this game, my dad acquired some Upper Deck Collector’s Choice NBA cards for me. Low and behold, I pulled a card of P.J. Brown. I loved the card because I loved the player and the team he played for. I studied the look on Brown’s face as dunked on an Orlando Magic player, his height, his weight, his college (Louisiana Tech) and some of his stats so I could show my mom that I did something with the cards. The card, along with many others, gave me a tangible connection to the team that I loved.
Fast forward to getting the card this year, I felt all of those emotions hit me again. Nostalgia and wistfulness are easy to come by in these depressing times. But, damn, if it didn’t feel good to remember that Brown went to Louisiana Tech without looking at the back of the card first or the fact that the Heat only got him after the botched signing of Juwan Howard in the 1996 offseason.5 I watched Brown’s highlights on YouTube and tried to find stories about him, of which there are too few.
The point of this story is simple. I don’t collect cards as an investment or to complete sets. I collect them to remember my love for P.J. Brown, my hatred of Charlie Ward and to find stories that I never knew about. I’ll be writing more card stories in the future and hope you all will share some of yours as well.
There are four main ways to buy cards on the secondary market: individual cards, packs, lots and boxes. Packs and boxes are unopened from suppliers, while lots are opened and selected by the seller.
P.J’s actual name is Collier, but his grandmother called him P.J. due to his love of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. As a kid who only ate PB&Js for years, this fact instantly made me connect to Brown.
Ward won the Heisman Trophy at Florida State before playing for the Knicks, ensuring that I would hate him forever.
Shouts to David Stern, now and forever.
The Howard fact was part of the little story on the back of the card. My earliest forays into sports writing were doing card stories, hence the name of this series.