Description
Collector's Note – Why This Issue Matters
Slam Magazine's October 1997 issue, featuring Kevin Garnett and Stephon Marbury on the cover, documents a genuinely fascinating moment in NBA history — one defined by youth, athleticism, and a new generation of players who had arrived in the league directly from high school or after just one college season. Garnett had been drafted straight out of Farragut Career Academy in Chicago in 1995, becoming the first player in twenty years to make that leap successfully, and by 1997 he was already one of the most dynamic forwards in the game with the Minnesota Timberwolves. Marbury, drafted fourth overall in 1996 by the Milwaukee Bucks and immediately traded to the Timberwolves, had played alongside Garnett in Minnesota before being traded to the New Jersey Nets in 1999 — but in October 1997 they were still teammates, and their pairing on a Slam cover captured a franchise that basketball culture was watching closely. Collectors researching the complete run of Slam Magazine issues will find the late 1990s Garnett appearances among the most culturally significant covers in the magazine's history.
The October 1997 timing places this issue in the buildup to the 1997–98 NBA season — the last season Michael Jordan would win a championship with the Chicago Bulls, and a year in which the rest of the league was very much in the process of identifying who would carry the sport forward. Garnett, at 21, was already being discussed in those terms. His combination of size, speed, ball-handling, and defensive intensity made him something genuinely new, and Slam — which had always prioritized the expressive, culturally connected side of basketball over its establishment coverage — was the natural home for that story. Marbury, similarly, represented a style of play rooted in New York City playground basketball that Slam's readership understood and celebrated on its own terms. The included poster, a consistent feature of Slam's format throughout this era, adds material display value that distinguishes surviving copies with the poster intact. For collectors building out their 1997 magazine archive, this issue is one of the more immediately recognizable basketball covers from that year.
About the Publication
Slam Magazine launched in 1994 as a basketball publication built around the culture surrounding the sport rather than its institutional press coverage. Its editorial voice was direct, opinionated, and deeply connected to hip-hop and street basketball — a combination that separated it sharply from Sports Illustrated and the official NBA media of the era. Slam covered players as cultural figures, prioritized personality and expression over statistics, and built a loyal readership among younger fans who experienced basketball as an identity as much as a sport. The magazine's inclusion of pull-out posters in many issues became one of its signature features, and those posters now constitute an important dimension of the collector appeal of individual issues. By 1997 Slam was firmly established as the most influential independent voice in basketball media.
Key Highlights Inside
- Cover feature on Kevin Garnett and Stephon Marbury of the Minnesota Timberwolves, published at the start of the 1997–98 NBA season — a period when both players were among the most watched young talents in the league.
- Includes a pull-out poster of the featured players, a signature Slam format element that adds direct display value to surviving copies where the poster remains intact.
- Documents Garnett during his third NBA season, by which point he had already established himself as one of the most versatile and athletically distinctive players in the game.
- Captures Marbury during his time as Garnett's Timberwolves teammate — a pairing that generated significant attention in basketball culture before Marbury's subsequent trade to New Jersey.
- Published without a subscription label, preserving the full cover image in its intended form.
- Note: Specific interior articles, additional features, and supporting content beyond the cover story and poster have not been independently confirmed from the listing and are not detailed here.
Condition & Rarity
This issue grades at Very Good to Excellent (VG/EX), indicating a copy with only minor wear and no subscription label — the preferred state for display-focused collectors, as the full cover art survives without defacement. At this grade, the cover image should be bright and clean, with any wear confined to very minor edge or corner softening rather than creasing or soiling. A protective plastic sleeve has been applied, appropriate for long-term preservation at this condition level. The poster is the variable most worth examining carefully in any surviving copy of this issue: examples where the poster remains fully attached and unfolded are meaningfully more desirable than those where it has been removed or heavily creased through use. For a late 1990s Slam featuring two players of Garnett and Marbury's stature, VG/EX no-label copies represent the upper range of what typically survives from this era of the magazine.
Looking for More Issues Like This?
Kevin Garnett's Slam appearances from the late 1990s are among the most consistently pursued issues in the magazine's back catalog, and this Garnett-Marbury Timberwolves cover is one of the more compelling entries from that period. The broader Slam Magazine archive at OriginalMagazines.com is the right place to explore what's currently available across the full run. Collectors working through the NBA's late 1990s era more broadly will also find the 1997 magazine collection worth browsing — it's a rich year in basketball history, right in the middle of the Jordan dynasty's final chapter and the emergence of the next generation.