A year after he began using the name in public, Topps printed it. The 1972-73 set gives him the same number as the year before, #100, and for the first time reads KAREEM ABDUL-JABBAR. He appears under the new name on an All-Star card in the same set, too.
Same number, same team, a year later: the first card that says Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.
The set is 264 cards, the NBA through #176 and the ABA after that, and it holds Julius Erving's rookie card at #195.
The design is loud in the way of its year: a solid bright background, the team name running at an angle in letters that grow larger as they go, and the player's name and position along the bottom. His background is red. He is bent over a dribble in the white Bucks uniform, and BUCKS climbs across the lower half of the card in yellow.
He had just been named Most Valuable Player for the second straight season.
The name change is the whole story of this card, and it is a plain one: two cards, the same number, a year apart, with a different name on each.
