McGregor Sand Knit first produced replicas for the general public back in the 1980's. Not too sure about the material quality of those jerseys but they looked to be screen printed for the most part. The real explosion happened in the 1990's with Champion. Champion produced a large library of replica jerseys and the quality was pretty much the same for any team or player. Screen printed team/player name and numbers on hard/rough polyester material. Screen printed NBA logo along with an embroidered Champion Logo just below the NBA logo.  Champion tag on the bottom left side. When comparing the amount of current players available now to the current players back then Champion had a much larger library of jerseys. It was common to even see bench player jersey produced....you don't see that nowadays.  Although the quality of Replica (Swingman) jerseys has definitely become better the library of players available has dwindled.  https://www.gameauthentics.com/post/early-days-of-replica-jerseys