I am like you in the way that I prefer to collect players that are great on an off the court. Hence my settling on autos of David Robinson and Magic Johnson. They are both stars of the game and decent people as well!
I personally have toyed with these guys over time:
drob--great guy/morals and was a stat machine, household name and has some nice cards out there--like my printing plate auto 1/1
clyde the glide--smooth under rated player who had flair and game, cards are well priced too
magic--arguably one of the best ever, nice guy, bit of a character and very under priced in cards...
shaq--this guy was just poor awesome, winner, great personality and lots to collect
you could try these losers---karl Malone, Stockton, barkley and ewing, great players but couldn't get their teams to win a championship...
larry bird, nice player, over hyped because he was white, if he had of been African American he wouldn't have got as much recognition....
Hand's of Ewing!!! He's already got enough collector's without another one!!!! lol. You could always try some old, old school New York Greats like Willis Reed, Earl Monroe, Walt "Clyde" Frazier, Dave Debusschere, Bill "Senator" Bradley (wasn't Phil Jackson on that team also?). There's also guys like Moses Malone, Robert Parish and Kevin McHale who are HOFers, were great players, but don't have much hobby love.
one buy im shocked that doesnt have a lot of love out there is the the scoring machine Bernard King... has some nice patches to collect and his auto is pretty affordable, not a huge volume overall to collect, so a realistic guy to chase
As long as you don't want anything super high-end... there is at least one mad Drexler collector out there who throws lots of money at the rare stuff he needs.