Description
Collector's Note – Why This Issue Matters
The August 1997 issue of Slam Magazine — Issue #19 — featuring Michael Jordan with a "1985" reference and an included poster is a primary document of basketball journalism at one of its most historically specific and most culturally charged moments. August 1997 falls in the heart of the Chicago Bulls' second three-peat dynasty, between the 1996-97 championship season — in which Jordan had won his fifth NBA title and fifth Finals MVP — and the 1997-98 season that would produce the sixth and final championship of the dynasty. The "1985" reference in the listing likely refers to Jordan's iconic 1985 Air Jordan I era, making this issue a meditation on the arc of his career from his debut to his contemporary dominance — a retrospective that was possible in August 1997 precisely because twelve years of Jordan's career had produced enough history to narrate. Slam's specific approach to basketball journalism — its streetwear aesthetic, its hip-hop cultural integration, its refusal of the mainstream sports press's deferential tone — gave its Jordan coverage a quality of critical engagement and cultural contextuality that distinguished it from the hagiography that characterized much Jordan coverage in 1997. A Slam Jordan issue at this specific moment is therefore both a document of his career and a primary artifact of the specific basketball media culture that his era produced. Collectors building a focused archive of Jordan's press documentation across his career will find the Michael Jordan magazines collection at OriginalMagazines.com the most comprehensive resource for his coverage across publications and years.
The poster's confirmed intact attachment gives this August 1997 issue a specific and well-understood collecting dimension that the Slam collector community values with particular precision. Slam was founded in 1994 with a format that combined long-form basketball journalism with the visual language of hip-hop culture, and its poster inserts were a central part of its editorial and commercial identity — large-format images that captured basketball's visual culture in the specific aesthetic register of the mid-1990s urban sports imagination. A Jordan poster from August 1997 is a primary visual document of how the most iconic player in basketball history was being presented to the magazine's specific readership at the peak of his second championship dynasty, and its survival in intact attached condition distinguishes this issue from the substantial majority of surviving examples whose poster inserts were removed by original readers. The Slam magazine collection at OriginalMagazines.com provides the broader archive for the publication's coverage of basketball culture during its most culturally productive decade, and any collector assembling a serious run of the magazine's issues will recognize the August 1997 Jordan number as one of the most significant in the publication's first fifty issues.
August 1997 also occupies a specific and historically poignant position in Jordan's career arc. Phil Jackson had announced after the 1996-97 season that he would not return as Bulls head coach regardless of whether the team pursued the three-peat, and the specific atmosphere of the 1997-98 season that this August issue was previewing was one of maximum tension — the final championship run conducted in the shadow of an acknowledged ending, with Jordan, Pippen, Rodman, and Jackson all understood to be playing out their last season together. The retrospective meditation on 1985 that this issue's framing suggests was therefore not merely nostalgia but a document of a career that its participants and observers understood was approaching its Bulls-era conclusion. The 1997 magazines collection at OriginalMagazines.com gathers publications from a year whose basketball history was being made in the final phase of one of the most consequential dynasties in professional sports.
About the Publication
Slam Magazine was founded in 1994 and established itself as the first major American basketball publication to fully integrate the visual language and cultural values of hip-hop into its editorial identity, covering the NBA and basketball culture with a combination of long-form journalism, irreverent editorial voice, and design aesthetics that distinguished it completely from the mainstream sports press. Its target readership was the urban young adult basketball fan who had grown up with hip-hop culture and who found the conventional sports magazine's presentation of basketball alien to their own experience of the game, and its format combined player profiles and game analysis with cultural commentary, fashion coverage, and the poster inserts that made individual issues collectible objects. By August 1997, in its third year of publication and nineteenth issue, the magazine had fully established the editorial identity that would make it the most culturally significant basketball publication of its era.
Key Highlights Inside
- Michael Jordan feature — career arc from 1985 to dynasty peak — a major feature engaging with Jordan's career trajectory from his 1985 Air Jordan I debut to his 1997 fifth-championship apex, providing primary documentation of how the most culturally significant basketball publication of the era was understanding and narrating Jordan's career at the specific moment between his fifth and sixth championships.
- Original poster intact and attached — confirmed complete issue — the confirmed survival of the original poster in attached condition distinguishes this issue from the majority of surviving examples whose poster inserts were removed by original recipients, representing the specific condition attribute that the Slam collector community identifies as most consequential for completeness evaluation.
- Issue #19 — founding period, pre-mainstream recognition — as the nineteenth issue of a magazine founded in 1994, this August 1997 number belongs to the publication's founding creative period before its cultural authority had become fully established in the mainstream sports media landscape, representing the most artistically and editorially adventurous phase of its basketball journalism.
- August 1997 — between fifth and sixth championships, dynasty's acknowledged final phase — published in the specific summer between the Bulls' 1996-97 fifth championship and the 1997-98 final-dynasty season, this issue captures Jordan and the Bulls at the precise moment when the ending of their era was understood by participants and observers to be approaching, giving the retrospective framing additional emotional and historical weight.
- No label — confirmed newsstand presentation — the absence of a subscriber address label places this issue in the more desirable subset of surviving examples, preserving the cover design in its fully unobstructed state.
Condition & Rarity
Good condition with minor wear typical of age, intact attached poster, no address label, and a plastic protective covering represents a particularly favorable collecting profile for a twenty-eight-year-old basketball magazine that was produced for active readership by a young audience rather than for collector preservation from the outset. The intact poster is the single most significant condition attribute, distinguishing this issue from the majority of surviving examples in the most collector-relevant way. Minor wear is expected and honest at this age and does not materially diminish the issue's value as a historical document or a display object when structural integrity is sound. The no-label newsstand presentation preserves the cover in its undisturbed state. The plastic protective covering confirms deliberate archival effort. For a Michael Jordan issue of Slam from the specific historical moment between his fifth and sixth championships, in this condition configuration, the combination of intact poster, no label, and good preserved condition represents a meaningfully more favorable profile than what the majority of surviving examples from this issue can offer.
Looking for More Issues Like This?
Michael Jordan Slam issues from the dynasty's peak years — and the August 1997 Issue #19, with its 1985 career retrospective, intact poster, and no-label newsstand condition, is among the most historically specific and most completely preserved examples from the publication's founding period — are consistently the most sought numbers in the Slam collecting community for any serious basketball history archivist. For collectors building a focused archive of Jordan's press coverage across his career, the Michael Jordan magazines collection at OriginalMagazines.com is the most comprehensive place to explore what's available. Those assembling a complete run of Slam's founding-period issues will find the Slam magazine collection equally rewarding, and the 1997 magazines collection offers essential context from the year of Jordan's fifth championship and the dynasty's final phase.