As most sports card collectors know, a 1980 federal court decision (Fleer v. Topps and MLBPA) ended the long monopoly of the Topps Gum Company, leading to the issuance of baseball cards by Topps competitors, most notably Fleer and Donruss.
For whatever reason, no other company immediately challenged Topps' similar dominance in basketball cards. So in the fall of 1981, for the 13th year and final time for a decade, Topps and only Topps released a card set featuring players of the National Basketball Association.
Strangely, Topps choose to end an era of professional basketball cards that had begun in the 1969-1970 season. Despite the absence of any competition, the 1981-82 set would be the last basketball cards issued by Topps until 1992.
Luckily for collectors, the void was filled by Star Company beginning with the 1983-84 season, Fleer in 1986-87 and NBA Hoops in 1989-90.
No official reason has ever been given by the bigwigs at Topps for terminating its 13-year run of basketball cards. One theory (my own) is that the previous year's set fell so flat that Topps decided in the latter part of 1981 to pull the plug on basketball cards after the last gasp of the 1981-82
