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The Playing Days

5 Short Minutes.

5 Minutes, 0 points, 2 assists. That was the stat line for Harold Miner’s final game in the NBA on February 20th, 1996.

It wasn’t supposed to end like this. Just four years earlier, he had wrapped up his junior season at USC, winning the Sports Illustrated College Player of the Year Award over the likes of Shaquille O’Neal, Alonzo Mourning, and Christian Laettner. “Baby Jordan” entered the league as the 12th pick in the 1992 draft.

As his rookie year progressed, he began earning more and more playing time. As a card collector, all the 1992-93 rookies were on my radar, but I really started paying attention when Miner won the Slam Dunk Contest during that rookie season.

He was a rookie, he won the dunk contest, and his nickname was Baby Jordan? Sign me up!

He finished his rookie season averaging about 10 points per game over about 19 minutes. Not spectacular but solid for a rookie. The majority of Miner’s rookie cards were released mid-way through the season. This allowed the card manufacturers to use in game photos from his rookie season instead of an airbrushed college photo or practice jersey shot. His 1992-93 Fleer Ultra Rookie Card #293 is probably his most sought after rookie card. It featured Baby Jordan taking a jump shot over Michael Jordan and collectors ate it up. Today, you can get a raw copy of the card on eBay for a couple dollars with graded copies getting up to $20-$30 depending on condition.

Miner started to feel some knee pain during his rookie year. He had surgery for a torn meniscus between seasons, and while he was able to perform during his sophomore season, Miner said his knee was never really the same.

In his second season he saw modest improvements in his stats and started roughly half of the games he played. Coming off the attention he earned as a high flying rookie, he made his way into several subsets and insert sets in the 1993-94 season which added even more to his hobby popularity.

The NBA Hoops Face to Face card capitalized on the Jordan/Baby Jordan hype and featured both athletes. Several others such as the Skybox Premium Thunder & Lightning and the Stadium Club Rim Rockers cards focused on his dunking ability. He also made it into the Upper Deck Holojam and Michael Jordan Flight Team insert sets. From cardboard to chrome, collectors had plenty of options to build out a Harold Miner basketball card collection.

His knee pain plagued him during the 1994-95 season and while he did win his second dunk title, he was limited to just 45 games that season. He was later traded to Cleveland for the 1995-96 season, but his knee caused daily pain and he only played in 19 games during his final season. A promising start to his career was ultimately cut short by his body giving out on him.

Shop for Harold Miner cards on eBay

Post Playing Days

After retiring, Miner disappeared from the basketball landscape. He stopped watching basketball, he stopped doing interviews, and he put anything that brought up the painful memories of his short career into storage.

Harold went on to get married in 1999 and in 2003 they had a daughter. Family became his focus. He went a decade or more without doing any interviews and he battled with his emotions as he thought about “what might have been”. Eventually he slowly began to start talking about his basketball career again.

His daughter Kami grew up to become a volleyball standout and went on to play at Stanford. She is a senior in the 2024 season.

This ESPN article tells the story of Harold finding a sense of redemption as he supported Kami through her development as an athlete.

Miner received his first post playing days cards in 2012 with Fleer Retro, SP Authentic and a couple other Upper Deck products. Eventually he made his way onto the autograph checklist for several Panini products including Hoops, Prizm, Select, and Spectra.

Collectors drawn to a sense of 90s nostalgia can once again find new cards of “Baby Jordan”.