A Month of Lego – The NBA – 3433 Ultimate NBA Arena

For a few years in the early 2000s, the LEGO Group released sets based on popular sporting events – Football (not American, but what most of the world calls Football), Gravity Games (which is loosely based on the X-Games), Hockey, and Basketball. Both the Hockey (NHL) and Basketball (NBA) were licensed, the Football had a few licensed sets, and the Gravity Games was really just snowboarders and skaters.

The interesting one from a collector’s perspective is the minifigures they released. Kobe, Shaq, Jason Kidd, Allen Iverson and over 20 other NBA players in LEGO minifigures.

There are a few other sets that feature real people (the Beatles Yellow Submarine as an example), but this is the largest group of them in the LEGO Universe.

They even made a set of customizable minifigures so you could make up your own team with numbers.

A side note, as someone that often buys LEGO bricks at garage sales and classified ads, this is also something I often see, is that as people are collecting their child’s LEGO bricks, they always miss the balls and other things that either aren’t branded LEGO or might otherwise be confused for another toy. So the balls, pucks, and some of the key parts that make the set work, often get left out of the LEGO bin. So, I’m always careful when looking at boxes with these parts in them.

Back to basketball. The Ultimate NBA Arena comes with an all-star lineup of minifigures from the Eastern and Western conference – Kobe, Shaq, Steve Nash, Dirk Nowitzki, Kevin Garnett, Allen Iverson, Tracy McGrady, Vince Carter, Antoine Walker, and Jason Kidd. The unique thing about these minifigures is their spring loaded legs. More on that in a bit…

The court is made up of similar tiles from the other Sports sets. They are unique to these sets and are specifically molded with smooth sections and ability to pivot and move some of the players. They are also indented to bring loose balls into any of the players during play. The outside edges are made from the same pieces that make up the halfpipes in the Gravity Games sets.

The Stadium also has scoreboards (5 flags on each side that raise up) and seating for fans. Four balls are included with the set for play. Similar to other games of the 80’s and 90’s, this was a live action game that allowed two players to battle by shooting baskets. The spring loaded minifigures allowed a player to bend them back and let go throwing the ball to the hoop. My generation accomplished this with a quarter, but the set is really a cool way to go. In this version, however there is a defensive player in the lane for blocking shots.

If you want to see the set in action, check out this video:

Another fun, playable and collectable set. Have a great day and shoot for 2!