The Flagg Collection #8 – George Gervin “ICEMAN” 1978 Nike Basketball Poster
Presenting…the most-wanted acquisition of every serious sports poster collector! Here it is, the legendary 1978 Nike “Iceman” poster, featuring the great George Gervin of the San Antonio Spurs reigning on his frozen throne.
As Gervin himself would tell you – far more people have asked him for one of these posters, than ever saw him play live! That is why he drove around for years with cases full of small later-day tribute-editions to sign and give away to fans wherever he went. He ran out of originals long, long ago, though – original Nike posters from the 1970s are a very, very hard item to find!
What made this poster into such an icon? Gervin is a legend in his own right, to be sure. But there’s more to it than that. It’s the whole package – that cross-legged pose…that ’70s jump-suit. The prop ice-throne with icy basketballs palmed. the original Nike “Blazer” basketball high-tops on his extremely large feet. And then there’s that classic Nike swoosh logo, making one of its first-ever pro sports poster appearances.
If you are lucky enough to find one of these in decent condition, prepare to spend hundreds of dollars to pry it away from its owner. We were lucky enough to obtain a few of them several years ago as part of a closeout-lot of old Nike posters purchased from the daughter of a shoe salesman. The rest are gone and sold; but this one was transferred to canvas to preserve it in its nearly flawless shape forever, and now resides in its permanent place as part of The Flagg Collection of significant, collectible gems from throughout sports poster history. Don’t ask us “how much” – it’s not for sale!!! (Who am I kidding…we know you’re going to ask anyway…)
Here’s a couple of other George Gervin posters from the era – these, from the Marketcom Sports Illustrated white-border series:
And here’s a couple of premium Photo File prints you can add to your collection right now from SportsPosterWarehouse.com; you’ll find them here in our San Antonio Spurs Collection:
Tags: george gervin, nike posters, the iceman
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The Sports Posters Blog 
February 11, 2018 at 7:02 am
Hello. I currently have 2 of these posters but the color at the bottom containing the word ICEMAN is a light shade of blue and not grey like the one illustrated in your post. The poster states Litho in USA and I believe they are early. Could you help date the items? Wondering what year the items were printed. One of them even came in a plastic factory sleeve with a sticker on one end labeled ICEMAN. hoping you could help me authenticate the item and identify if these are original prints from the 70s. Thanks.