1 Player, 1 Card, 3 Teams

Editor's note: I'm too busy working on models to actually write posts at this time. I only have a short window I can build in before it gets too hot and humid, so when the weather is good it takes up all my attention. This post was written a few months ago and held in queue. I completed my first model of 2019 on Monday, so I am accomplishing something!

It's not uncommon to have cards of a player listed with one team but shown with another. Players get traded or sign with new teams all the time.

But three teams on one card? That's rarer, but not unheard of. I've been wanting to write about that topic for a while, but never got to it. Now, I scanned a card that shows it so I figure it's a perfect time.

B.J. Armstrong played the 1994-95 season with the Chicago Bulls, in fact he had played his entire 6 year career to that point with the Bulls, winning three NBA titles in the process. However, the NBA added two new teams for the 1995-96 season, and he went to the Toronto Raptors as one of their expansion picks.

The earlier 1995-96 releases list him as a member of the Raptors. However, he would never play a game for the club. He refused to, in fact, despite being their first pick. With no other options available, the Raptors had to make a trade.

Three months after the draft- and around one month before the season began- he was traded by the Raptors to the Golden State Warriors for FIVE players. A 1-for-5 deal is quite rare in and of itself. The trade was made too late for some of the cards to mention it at all, while several added Traded To demarcation, as this Metal card did, and some others. (of the five players he was traded for, only 2- Carlos Rogers and Victor Alexander - ever got an NBA card, all 5 played in the NBA)

Back in those days, most sets had a Series II so he soon began showing up in Warriors uniform.

After a year+ in Oakland, he was again traded for more than one player- this time to the Charlotte Hornets, who sent both their point guards to Golden State for him.

It's interesting to ponder what could have happened if he was not traded by the Raptors. He surely would have been their starting point guard in their first season, but instead that went to Damon Stoudamire, who would go on to win Rookie of the Year that season, my first as a fan of the sport. More than likely Stoudamire would not have gotten anywhere near the playing time to be Rookie of the Year if he was on the bench behind a capable and durable point guard. B.J. Armstrong was a starting point guard on the Championship Bulls, after all, and played all 82 games in the 1995-96 season. I was unable to find the final voting for Rookie of the Year for the season, so I'm not sure who was runner up. I think it may have been Antonio McDyess, but I'm not sure where to even look. Whether it was McDyess, Joe Smith, Michael Finley or anybody else, it would not have affected their careers, other than the bonus money that comes from being named one of the major award winners. Had the trade not happened, though, who's to say how Stoudamire would have fared in his career?

Armstrong is one of the few players who has gone on to be an agent after his playing career.

Just a fun little bit of NBA trivia.