The Knicks are in the Playoffs

It's been eight years since I've been able to say those words. It feels great. I was hoping to get this post up prior to the series start, but I'm a little late and the Hawks already have a 1-0 lead. Last night's loss was brutal, it really felt like the Knicks were in control starting in the middle of the third quarter. A would-be turnover eluded R.J. Barrett, and it turned into a momentum-swinging three pointer by Bogdan Bogdanovic with 55 seconds remaining. 

Despite the loss, it was still thrilling to watch the Knicks in the postseason. No one, myself included, expected the Knicks to finish over .500 or contend for a playoff spot. The Knicks truly are playing with house money, and I keep reminding myself of that. I'm also very optimistic about Game Two at MSG on Wednesday night. The home court advantage is very real, and I don't see them losing two straight at home. 

The blog crowd seems to be 75% baseball fans, so I try to keep my basketball posting to a minimum. This is a special occasion. My Knicks PC is pretty small, mostly because we haven't many players worth collecting. It seems like the leadership in place has a plan to win, and the team is becoming more collectible.

My scanner is jacked up, so we'll have to settle for cell phone photos today:

R.J. Barrett - 2019-20 NBA Hoops RC

Julius Randle is undoubtedly the star and the leader of the team, but I believe that the team goes as R.J. goes. Randle has been attracting a ton of attention from opposing defenses and it frees up a lot of space for other scorers. There are plenty of solid role players, but R.J. has star potential. 

The remainder of my R.J. rookie cards - I have at least one copy from most major releases, aside from Prizm.

I also have a few R.J. cards from 2019-20 Prizm Draft. The middle card is a Purple Refractor, and the card on the right is a Green and Yellow Prizm, #/249.

Immanuel Quickley - 2020-21 NBA Hoops RC

The jury is still out on the the Knicks first first-round pick in the 2020 draft - Obi Toppin - but it certainly looks like they hit on their second first-round pick, Immanuel Quickley. I watched every game this dude played in at Kentucky, and I was hyped when the Knicks grabbed him. He put together a stellar rookie year and finished fifth amongst rookies in scoring. 

There's no rhyme or reason from here on out - I'm just going to show off some cards at random. Alonzo Trier is out of the league, but he made a nice little splash with the Knicks in 2018-19, and Panini printed the sh*t out of his rookie cards. The Randle and Mitch-Rob cards are blue velocity parallels from 2019-20 Donruss Optic. They are sweet looking with the matching team colors. 

Some random rookies - the Shumpert is #/599. The Gallo card is cool - he got a nice start to his career with the Knicks, but he's made more of a name for himself elsewhere.

I pulled the Kadeem Allen autograph out of a retail pack last year, which was cool. I didn't love him as a player - he was one of those guys that probably belonged in the G-League, but stuck around the big league roster to help with the tank. 

I traded for the Toppin rookie on TCDB, and I've had the David Lee auto in my PC for a long time. He was a favorite of mine back in the late 2000's when he was a lone bright spot for the Knicks. One year, he averaged 20 ppg and earned himself an All-Star nod. I was happy for him when had sustained success with the Warriors and went on to win a ring in 2015. 

A selection of my childhood heroes - all of those are pack-pulled by me in the 90's. Gotta love the Allan Houston insert. 

I don't have much 'Melo - but here are a few. 

Finishing up with some more randoms. Looks like I got the wrong Antetokounmpo, but still fun to see that name on a card. 

Thanks for stopping by. Here's to hoping that the Knicks can bounce back on Wednesday night and make a series out of it.

7 Day Trading Card Challenge: Day One

When browsing the Blogosphere yesterday, I came across a fun idea from Tim at Cardpocalypse. 

I'll do my best to pump these out as quickly as possible but seven posts in seven days will be a stretch  for me so I'll be going at my own pace. The good news is I've already picked out a card for each post!

Today's Challenge: Favorite card acquired during quarantine

Like so many of us I've been really active with collecting over the past two months. Picking just one card out of the many that I've acquired was a challenge. I'm going with the "flavor of the week" approach here: I purchased this card about a week ago and it's been setting out on my desk for me to look at since - which is a funny little habit I have when it comes to cards. When I buy a card that I really love, I let it sit on my desk for a few weeks before putting away in storage. I don't display my collection anywhere in the house so this my way of giving my favorite cards some admiration. Most PC pickups go straight into storage and only the luck ones make it on the desk.

Stephen Curry - 2019-20 Donruss Optic Holo Parallel

There's been a total hysteria around basketball cardboard this season, and buying basketball packs or boxes is basically an afterthought. Donruss Optic is probably the second "hottest" product offering during basketball season. The big chase was for rookies of course - but pricing inflated across the board, especially LeBron. Then came The Last Dance and MJ cards blew up. During all the madness (which is still going) I've felt that Steph Curry has really flown under the radar. A year or two ago, Steph was that dude. An ankle injury knocked him out for essentially the entire 19-20 season, and the Warriors were the worst team in the NBA (worse than the Knicks!) so Steph was absent from headlines.

I'm not a Warriors fan and I'm not necessarily a Steph Curry fan. Just wanted to add a cool card to my collection. For the price of a blaster, I've a got a sweet parallel of one of the NBA's top five players. 

Thanks to Tim for the idea. 

Busting Open a Hot Corner Box from Excel Marketing

I've been intrigued by these packs for a while, and today I picked one up. The package is certainly unspectacular - the artwork kind of looks like... something us bloggers would throw together. 

One of these boxes will run you $15. I believe they're exclusive to Target. The box promises two hits, a hobby pack, and three other packs (retail packs). I really like variety so these are really tempting. 

Front and back of the box if you're interested.

Here are the four packs that were inside. Left to right: 2019 Bowman, 2008 Donruss Elite (Hobby), 2019 Topps Series 1 Jumbo, and 1988 Donruss.

Not... awful. I went in super low expectations. 2008 Donruss is certainly a bummer for the hobby pack but I wasn't expecting to find Bowman Chrome. 

And here are the two hits. The cards are just free-floating in the box, tucked between packs. No penny sleeve, no top loader - but they were in good shape so no complaints.

The Adam Dunn bat piece is definitely cool and I love the framed Ginter Relics. Thumbs up. As for Nolan Fontana...  I had to look him up. He's a former prospect that had a cup of coffee in the majors. Fun fact: He has only two career hits and they're both home runs. That's pretty cool.

The Series One pack wasn't too spectacular and sadly didn't have any Buccos. It did contain a couple nice rookies. I'm super high on Kopech and I've been stockpiling his rookies.  

Is this enough to call in Kopech hot box?

The Bowman pack was much more generous with Pirates. The Seinfeld duo showed up! Funny enough, they were consecutively stacked in the pack as well. Maybe the pack-filling machine at Topps has a sense of humor. 

Overall, this was fun. I don't see myself getting another one of these again any time soon, but I don't regret it.

I'm curious... Have you ever opened an Excel marketing product? What did you think? If not, have you thought about it? 

Pirates PC Adds, and Two New Trades

Yep, the World Series is going on and I'm just over here talking about Pittsburgh Pirates cards. No Juan Soto cards to show off here, sorry. Just lots of mediocre Pirates.

Lots of new stuff to debut, lets get to it!

Jose Osuna is a guy who's been buried pretty deep in the Pirates system for quite some time. Not for a lack of talent or skill, but more so because of outfield depth in AAA. Osuna for three years, Osuna has been one of the last guys cut from the big league roster in Spring Training, and one of the first guys called up once injuries strike. He has some real pop in his bat, and considering that he's "average athleticism" for a major leaguer, he's pretty versatile defensively - able to plug in at 1B, 3B, and both outfield spots.

In 2019, Osuna enjoyed a new career high in ABs with 261. Seeing him play more often inspired me to check out some of his Rookie cards. He may never be an everyday player, but I love this dude.

Oh! And I got a new scanner, so enjoy some awesome pictures that really pop.

2017 Topps Update Gold Parallel #/2017

2012 Bowman Chrome Prospects Refractor #/500

2017 Topps Heritage High Number Chrome Variations Refractor #/568

Next up, I grabbed a pair of 2014 Bowman Chrome Bubble Refractors #/99:

Our old buddies Cutch and Cole. I'll admit it, I have a strange fondness for these cards. They're super unique looking, and look really great in the scans when they get some light bouncing off them. These additions will join Fransisco Liriano as I build a Pirates team set.

Next up, two awesome cards that I received in a PWE swap with Matt at Sport Card Collectors. I was able to knock some 90's football cards off of his wantlist, and he was generous enough to send back a card that I've had my eye on.

Matt threw in a few other cards, this being one of them: Chris Archer 2019 Topps Heritage Chrome Refractor.

But here's the real prize:

2019 Bowman Sterling Travis Swaggerty Sparkle Parallel #/99.

What a beauty! Swaggerty was the Pirates first round pick in this year's draft. This is not only my first auto of his, but my first Swaggerty card. I couldn't be more pumped. This card is so sweet. One last plug for my new scanner... it certainly made this refractor jump out. Thanks for the trade, Matt!

I also completed my first trade with Trevor of Bump and Run Football Card Blog. Trevor took part in an Optic group break and ended up with the Pirates, so he had a nice stack to send my way:

 

Aside from the Optic stuff, I also hand-picked two cards off of his trade list:

2017 Topps Update Jose Osuna

2018 Topps Heritage Austin Meadows RC

You probably know this guy by now. Sadly, I didn’t really collect much of Meadows when he was in the Pirates system. He was a little too blue of a blue chip prospect and the price tags on his cards were too high. I can’t imagine they’re about to go down any time soon, so it’s great to pick this up through trade. Thanks for the cards, Trevor!

Lastly I’ll showcase a random eBay pickup from last week:

2019 Donruss "The Rookies" Benny Snell Auto #/299

How sweet is this refractor? 

I haven’t blogged about this yet – it’s a conversation for another day – but over the past three years I’ve become a big University of Kentucky football fan. My fandom hasn’t spilled into collecting yet bu maybe this will open the floodgates. When the Steelers drafted Benny Snell in the fourth round this year I was ecstatic. I had enjoyed watching this guy will Kentucky to several wins over the past two years, so it was a dream-come-true to have him join my NFL team.

Thanks for reading!