Crash course in Basketball collecting, please!

[Yamon999]

Hi, I've only been collecting football and baseball so far but I want to start collecting basketball as well.

I was wondering if anyone could help me out by giving me a crash course in which players and rookies I should collect and who is hot right now? For example, in football, Adrian Peterson, Matt Ryan, and Joe Flacco are all hot rookies and Dan Marino and Emmitt Smith are hall of famer greats. So if possible, a list of classic greats would be greatly appreciated. I only know of MJ and Rodman. Thank you!!!

[garnett_21]

Moved to Basketball Card Talk. :-)

Current "hot" rookies/2nd year players:
OJ Mayo
Derrick Rose
Russell Westbrook
Brook Lopez
Kevin Love
Kevin Durant
Al Horford

Superstars who've played more than 2 years:
Kobe Bryant
Lebron James
Dwight Howard
Chris Paul
Kevin Garnett
Dwyane Wade
Amare Stoudemire
Tim Duncan

Retired greats:
Jordan
Scottie Pippen
John Stockton
Karl Malone
Charles Barkley
Magic Johnson
Larry Bird
Julius Erving

These lists can be extended, so this is just a sampling of some of the greats. Good luck!

[mattyj]

probably throw Michael Beasley and Eric Gordon onto the rookie list

Hakeem Olajuwon, David Robinson, Dominque Wilkins onto the retired list