Fave Five -- Shaq

Yesterday's announcement (via Twitter no less) of Shaq's retirement prompted me to dig out my basketball cards and select a Fave Five.

At one point in my collecting career, I probably had 30+ Shaq cards.  But, over the years, I've traded away or sold most of them.  I currently have a baker's dozen cards of the big guy and here are my Fave Five.

Fave #5 -- 1993 Upper Deck Collectors Choice (#232)

When I was a kid, I was infatuated with the autopenned signatures that many of the Upper Deck cards had on them.  They were definitely as close as I was ever going to get to having my favorite player's autographs.  And I was always amazed that Shaq had enough strength to get those ginormous feet off the ground.

Fave #4 -- 1992-93 Skybox Series 2 Rookie (#382)

This card is a pretty good representation of the impact Shaq had on the league:  Just stand back and watch.  This is the only rookie card I have left in my collection (I probably only had one or two back in the day) and I pulled it from a box of Series 2 that I opened a few months back.

Fave #3 -- 1993-94 Fleer Ultra Rebound King (9 of 10)

Fleer Ultra parallel sets were always my favorites when I was a kid.  And this card is no exception.  I am fairly certain that I pulled this one from a pack.  

Fave #2 -- 1993-94 Fleer Ultra USA Basketball (#M2)

Not the most flattering pose in the world, but a cool card none-the-less.

Fave #1 -- 1993-94 Topps Stadium Club Frequent Flyers (#358)

The Frequent Flyers mini-set was pretty cool when I was a kid.  I remember when my buddy pulled a Jordan FF card from a pack.  He couldn't have been any happier.  And I felt the same way when I pulled this one.

I always liked Shaq when I was a kid, but he was too hot of a commodity for me to personally collect, so I would use his cards as trade fodder to help me acquire more Stockton cards.  And a few of them have stuck around my collection to this day.

Finally, as you can probably tell from the above cards, my fondest memories of the big fella are from his Orlando Magic days.  Seeing him in other jerseys still looks odd to me.

He is probably the best example for me of a guy who has played on numerous teams, but he'll always be a member of (insert team here) in my mind.  I'd also put Jason Kidd and Grant Hill into this category in my mind.

Do you have any guys who have bounced around from team to team but you only think of them as a member of one team?