FIVE YEARS INTO her NBA Barbie quest, a frustrated Marilyn Harvey stood up in the closing moments of her 2004 family reunion in Alabama. She grabbed the microphone and prepared to issue her loved ones an ultimatum. Out of respect for Harvey, a prep basketball pioneer in Alabama, a longtime nurse and the family matriarch, the raucous room of nearly 100 family members from across the country fell silent. Most of them knew that for years Harvey, a hoops junkie with a force-of-nature personality, had been on a mission to secure the entire NBA Barbie doll collection for her Barbie-obsessed daughter, Candice, who was then 13.
In 1999, the NBA and Mattel teamed up to sell a one-time, leaguewide collab featuring Black and white Barbies outfitted in each franchise’s authentic uniform and warmup top. The dolls also came with white high-tops, knee braces, an official NBA basketball the size of a marble and a large hairbrush that, proportionately, was the size of a cello. Barbie’s sartorial timing on the collab was rather impeccable, since nearly half the teams during this NBA era incorporated some kind of funky variation of purple or teal in their outfits, starting with Detroit’s horrifically awesome teal horsehead jerseys. That memorable Pistons logo and the other 28 NBA team logos were featured on the back of every NBA Barbie doll box near a special 888 number for more info on the dolls and the phrase: Own all 29 NBA Barbie dolls and have the coolest collection in the world!
The challenge was especially powerful for the Harveys: Marilyn was a Michael Jordan fanatic and a starter on the first women’s basketball team at Pike County High in Brundidge, Alabama; Candice, as a kid, slept in Barbie…
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