The 1996-97 season was the NBA's 50th Anniversary, and the League issued it's roster of 50 Greatest Players. Topps commemerated this with the Topps Stars release, which saw each of the 50 Greatest Players get three cards in the main set, which also featured Chrome, Refractor and Atomic Refractor paralells.

The Rookie Reprints were issued throughout all Topps sets during the 1996-97 season, reissues, on thicker, glossier card stock, of the first Topps issue for most players, although Bowman and Star reissues were also in the set. For the Bowman card, for George Mikan, the reprint was expanded to normal card size, for the several players who saw their first Topps card in the 1969-70 release, the cards were shrunk to normal size.

Despite Beckett calling the set "1996" only, the set is actually a 1996-97 release. For some odd reason Beckett tended to call sets composed of (Primarily) legend players only one year, even when the cards themselves had the standard dating format printed on the cards or packaging.