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 Seven

Today’s challenge: Best hobby trend to emerge this year

As much as I’ve enjoyed showing off many of my favorite cards, I’m equally excited to get into a philosophical discussion that I imagine will vary greatly from blog to blog. I feel like my selection might be very polarizing and I’m hoping it sparks some conversation. 

My favorite hobby trend to emerge in the past 12 months is the re-emergence of the valuable rookie base card.

I have been collecting as an adult since 2013. In the 6+ years of collecting, I have not seen nearly the demand for base rookie cards that I have witnessed in 2019-2020.  The two easy examples that come to mind are the Zion Williamson base card in 2019-20 Panini Prizm, and the Jasson Dominguez base cards in 2020 Bowman. 

What this craze has created, in my opinion, is an added value when purchasing retail products. It’s also made them much harder to find, which is a negative side effect, and I think the reason that some may disagree with my choice. To me, it’s worth it. For years, I was buying retail products with the hope of pulling some Pirates, some cards to trade, and in a perfect world, a nice hit or some young rookies that have promise and could develop into stars.  

Keep in mind that I’m not a set-builder. I think many of us buy packs in order to get a nice start on building a set. I am devoid of that motivation, but I still love ripping packs, and having the chance to pull some instant value out of a blaster box is pretty damn appealing to me. And the best part is, we’re talking about base cards here! These cards are no more rare or difficult to find than other card in the set. 

I know the love for the rookie card has always been there, but I think it’s near an all-time high. I also think this is a sign of the beginning of the decline of a trend that was huge over the past ten years – the trend of “hit” based products. i.e. products that offered autographs and memorabilia cards with few base cards.  I’m as guily as anyone of having fell victim to the trend. I purchased many of those products and chased many autographs. I still do, to a degree, but not like I used to.

Anyhow, I’m hoping I’m onto something here. I hope hit-based collecting trends decline in favor of more traditional products. It seems like many of the most valuable cards being put out there recently are rookie base cards, not “hits,” and that's pretty cool to me. 

I’m really curious to hear others and I’m hoping to hear your thoughts in the comments. Have you enjoyed seeing the rebound is rookie base card value? Do you love it like me? Do you hate it? Have you not noticed? Let’s hear it!

Mailday: Bump and Run

In April I posted about joining TCDB and how I've been having a lot of fun with it early on. I've been a member for about two months now and I've already completed eight trades. All of the trades were PWE swaps and almost all of them consist of me sending a set-builder some set needs, and them sending me Pirates rookies in return. In a nutshell, TCDB has become a way for me to hoard Pirates rookie cards via trade and I'm totally cool with that.

After seeing my April post, Trevor at Bump and Run Cards shot me a note about trading for some of my 2020 Opening Day cards. He came across me on TCDB and we worked out the trade through there, which saves us a ton of back-and-forth emailing. He helped me continue my journey in hoarding Pirates rookies but moreso helped me add to my Steelers PC.

(L) Le'Veon Bell - 2016 Score

(C) Le'Veon Bell - 2017 Panini Prestige Phenomenal Athletes Insert

(R) Le'Veon Bell - 2013 Panini Prizm RC

Lots of great to stuff to unpack from the cards above. I'm still a Le'Veon Bell fan and I still collect him. I'll admit that I was annoyed by his contract shenanigans two years ago... then Antonio Brown happened and it made Le'Veon look like saint. How quickly we forget. I was shocked to see that his Prizm rookie card was from 2013 - I can't believe that he'll be going into his seventh year in the league this year. That flew by. I think he still has some juice left in the tank but he plays for Jets, where careers go to die.

(L) T.J. Watt - 2018 Panini Rookies and Stars RC

(C) Terrel Edmunds - 2018 Donruss Elite Terrell Edmunds RC #/699

(R) Bud Dupree - 2015 Donruss RC

I picked off another three rookies from Trevor's For Trade list. While Watt and Dupree are the stars, my favorite card here is the Edmunds card. It's short printed to 699 and has a really nice foil finish to it. I'm still high on Edmunds, although after two years of mediocre-at-best performance, he's entering potential bust territory.

Trevor is the opposite of most of us: A football collector with a side collection of baseball. It seems that it's usually the other way around. Judging by these two cards, he still rips some modern baseball products and I'm happy to be on the receiving end of another pair of Pirates rookies.

Thanks for the trade, Trevor!

2013-14 Panini Crusade Hobby Box Break

I promise you; I'm not that guy that takes his took his stimulus check and blew it on cards. I'm very fortunate to still have my job, and although the current state of affairs will likely have some sort of long-term affect on my career, I'm secure right now. I'd be lying if I said the stimulus didn't play a small part in the splurge on a hobby box... but I probably would have pulled the trigger on this anyhow but maybe the extra capital helped take away the guilt.

I'm not sure what the MSRP on these boxes was when they launched, but this puppy set me back $200 from Blowout. For what basketball hobby boxes cost these days, that's on the low end. The price is reasonable because the 2013 rookie class is absolutely atrocious. 2013 was the Anthony Bennett year, so uh, rough from the very first pick. Seven years later, there are only three players from that draft that have made an All-Star team: Victor Oladipo, Rudy Gobert, and one Giannis Antetokounmpo. 

No slight to 'Dipo and Gobert, but this draft is now about one player and one player only, and that's Giannis. The shot at hitting a Giannis Rookie brings some real intrigue to this product for me. 

Each box promises one autograph and one memorabilia card. More importantly to me, it includes 18 Crusade cards which is what draws me in. That's roughly a one in 15 shot at a super badass Giannis Rookie. Not great, but there are bigger long shots out there. 

The Crusade cards are really appealing to me and they're the driving force behind the fun of this product. I've always gotten the feel that the low-numbered Crusade cards are often more sought after than most of the autographs in this set and that's a refreshing change of pace. The Crusade inserts came into existence right around the time that Panini Prizm started to get really big. The way I remember it, way back around 2012-2014, these cards were actually hotter than Panini Prizm. They were Prizm before Prizm, if you will.

On to the break:

Starting out with the base design. I'm not that big of a fan of this design. It's a bit busy. I like the 2012-13 design much more. Lucky for me, I'm not buying this Crusade for the base cards. Not complaining with the two names represented here, however!

Knight Court and Royalty are two of the various inserts. Again, busy and unimpressive, so let's get to the good stuff...

Ahhhh. The scanner does these cards a lot of justice, but I swear they're even prettier in person. Out of my 18 Crusade cards, 11 were of the blue variety which are the base design. Any other colors are serial numbered parallels. Pictured above are eight of my 11 blues. Anthony Davis in the top right is the highlight on a really solid second-year card. You'll notice some retired greats in there as well - the "Retired" checklist has 50 NBA Greats and Hall of Famers.

Red parallels showed up with two retired greats. These parallels are numbered /349. The retired checklist is heavy on Hall of Famers, but isn't exclusive to HOFers as we see Glen Rice pop in. Rice is well remembered for his All-Star seasons with the Heat the Hornets, but I'll always remember him as a Knick for one year in the early 2000's.

I pulled four Teal Crusade parallels, which are numbered /249. The highlight here is definitely Yao Ming backing down an invisibly opponent who is undoubtedly shorter than him. Yao was three years retired in 2013, and this set was released two years before he was inducted into the Hall of Fame. 

Fun fact: Did you know Yao is only 39 years old right now? 

The last parallel that I pulled is this sweet Khris Middleton purple parallel, numbered /49. Not the Milwaukee Buck I was hoping for but I'll take it. He's a two-time All-Star and one of the most-under-the-radar stars in the NBA. He'll never be the first option on the Bucks as long as Giannis is there but there's a reason the bucks have signed him to a 5 year deal... twice.

My first hit, a Michael-Kidd Gilchrist patch #/299 and rocking a Bobcats jersey. Definitely an underwhelming pul in 2020, knowing what we do about MKG's career. If this was pulled upon the release of this product it might have been a different story. A former #2 overall pick and a guy that many thought would easily pan out to be perennial All-Star.

And finally: The crown jewel of the break. I was floored when I flipped this over to see a beautiful on-card autograph from one of the best to ever play the game.

And how sweet is it that he signs his name "Abdul Jabbar."!?

I really wasn't expecting much from the autograph in this break. This comes from the "Sultans of Springfield" checklist which features 25 Hall of Famers. I feel like you always see those checklists when buying, but you know in your heart you'll have no shot. I took a look over the rookie checklist - which yes, has Giannis - but it also has the likes of Shabazz Muhammad, Alex Len, Shane Larkin, and so on. I had already accepted my fate of pulling one of them. 

Coincidentally, I was also on Twitter today and saw some rumors that Panini is no longer honoring expired redemptions. Painini hasn't issued an official statement on the matter but there were some tweets from an alleged Panini employee with an unverified account. I'm 50/50 on believing it so take it for what you will.  Of course I stumbled upon these Tweets a day after buying this box, so I was all but certain I would be pulling an expired redemption. Luck was on my side today. All things considered, this break turned out to be a lot of fun - everything I was hoping for aside from a Giannis rookie of course!

I'll tell you what - I certainly wasn't expecting to be adding a signature from the NBA's all-time leader scorer to my collection, so I'm grateful.

Merry Cutchmas

It's never too late for some Christmas cheer. Way back in early December, Brian at Collecting Cutch sent me a holiday gift package. Totally unannounced and unexpected. Brian's the most generous collector I've connected with, and apparently one of the most artistic. The artwork he did on above is on the top loader, not the card itself. I imagine defacing a cutch card is a cardinal sin for a Cutch super-collector.

Brian hooked me up with a wide variety of Pirates goodies. First off is the Nick Burdi Inception Autograph, Pink Parallel #/99. Also along for the ride is a Gerrit Cole Prizm RC. 

And the real gem here, my first Willie Stargell auto. It's part of the 1993 Nabisco All-Star set. I don't know much about the set but according to some light research, I see that Phi Niekro, Brooks Robinson, Don Drysdale, Catfish Hunter and Jim Palmer are also in the set, so it seems like a small set of some big time HOFers.

Brian also included some cards that I was lucky enough to win in his Save Second Base contest in October. There was a big stack of 2019 Topps Chrome Pink Parallels, as well this awesome Jose Berrios from 2018 Clearly Authentic. My infatuation with Berrios is well documented so this a sweet addition to my collection.

Thanks again Brian!

Speaking of packages, I also wanted to give a shoutout to Chris over at The Collector. I sent him Red Sox cards from his wantlist and he was nice enough to send me back a great stack of Pirates, Steelers, and Blue Jackets. I'm still very new to hockey collecting, so any CBJ cards are super appreciated. Thank you Chris!

Last week I joined a 4-Box Bowman's Best Break from Midwest Box Breaks. Theres' a hefty number of Pirates on the autograph checklist so I figured I'd spin the wheel. To acquire the Pirates in the break, the price was right. Cal Mitchell is the Pirates #6 overall prospect and #2 outfield. 20 years old, drafted in the second round in 2017. Quinn Priester is the newest Pirate, drafted 18 overall in 2019 and the #5 overall prospect in the system. I've been meaning to grab an auto of him for some time. Hopefully we'll see these guys in the show in the next 3-4 years.

Thanks for reading.

Busting Open Two 2019-20 Panini Prizm Blasters

In the past two weeks I’ve made several dedicated trips to my local Target to see if they’d gotten any 2019-20 Panini Prizm in, and all of my attempts came up empty. After a few trips I decided to give it up. Yesterday I needed to stop by Target to pick up some household items and of course I took a stroll down the card aisle as well. To my delight, Prizm had landed. I grabbed two blasters and went on my way.

For those of you who aren’t basketball collectors: Why are you even here? Just kidding (seriously, thanks for reading). For those of you who aren’t familiar with basketball card products, Prizm is essentially the Bowman Chrome. It includes both rookies and veterans. The most prized rookie cards for the year come from Prizm, very similar to Bowman 1^st. There may not be a ton of immediate value in Prizm but it’s definitely the top basketball product to buy and hang on to.

The contents of the two boxes couldn’t have been more different, but let’s get into it. I’m not going to go card-by-card, just some highlights and hits:

Box one:

This box had great consistency, as I was finding great rookies in almost every pack. These are the base cards,  Culver and Edwards are solid, and Matisse Thybulle is very quietly emerging as one of the stronger rookies in the class.

It seems like each blaster box contains one of the green parallels. Ideally you’d love for this to be a rookie, but no complaints from me. I really like Whiteside’s game. He’s more of a classic big man, and you don’t get too many of those in today’s NBA.

Here’s a look at what one of the “Silver” cards looks like. Simply put, these are refractors – and just like in baseball, these are sought after, especially when it comes to rookies. Deividas Sirvydas was drafted at age 19 out of Lithuania by the Pistons. He’s super, super raw and he’ll be overseas for the next several years. Hopefully some day he’ll make it back over the pond.

Each blaster promises a hit in the form of an autograph or a memorabilia card, and here’s mine. Crabbe was very solid for the Nets last year before signing with the Hawks and assuming a bench role. Either way, a boring white jersey swatch covers any team he’s playing for. 

It’s my lucky day! The Vlad Jr. of basketball. I have my doubts about Zion. Not because of his ability but moreso because of his inability to stay healthy lately. I do believe he’s a generational talent, but I’m nervous he could be headed down the Derrick Rose/Blake Griffin route with injuries. I certainly hope I’m wrong. I’m on the fence about whether to sell or stash. I can’t remember a time when a base card was worth as much this, so I’m certainly tempted to move it.

On to box number two:

This box was much less exciting. Clockwise from top left: Kevin Garnett green parallel, Keldon Johnson memorabilia card, Cam Johnson rookie base card, Jalen McDaniels rookie Silver.

Not a lot to write home about. I’m a big fan of Keldon Johnson, although I’m not sure what his NBA ceiling is looking like. At least it’s not a plain white swatch – plain black is a tiny step up. The Garnett green parallel is cool, especially in the old Timberwolves jersey which is way better than a Boston Jersey. McDaniels is a late-second rounder that’s spent most of his year in the G-League. I’ll be stashing this way and hoping he turns into Jimmy Butler in three years.

So there we have it. This break was a lot fun – highly recommended for any basketball fans.

Minkah Fitzpatrick is Really Good

And I'm happy he's on my team. For the first time in a long time the Steelers have a respectful defense. This is due to a variety of factors. Bud Dupree is emerging as a viable starter, T.J. Watt continues to look like a perennial Pro-Bowler, and the secondary has quietly done their part.

Most importantly the addition of Minkah Fitzpatrick has really boosted the defensive unit. Simply put, Fitzpatrick has been a total game changer since his arrival. In just eight games he has: Forced a fumble. Recovered a fumble. Snagged five picks. 

Oh, AND he's scored TWO touchdowns. 

Upon hearing of the trade back in mid-September I was immediately looking to add a Minkah auto to my collection. Considering that he's only one year removed from being drafted #11 overall and has been a consistently good pro, I was pleasantly surprised to see that his autos were pretty affordable. 

I'm always hunting for numbered parallels so I was hoping find one for a decent price. The highest number out there for 2018 Prizm is #/199. This is for red parallels which were running $15+ and that's just too steep for me.

I settled for a Pink parallel for less than $10. Not numbered, but it's some variety past just the silver base card so I'll take it!

While we're here, I'll show off a Pirates PC pickup. Bryan reynolds had an incredible breakout season in 2019. His cards were few and far between until 2019 Topps Update. I'm still looking for his base cards (both Update and Chrome Update) and I'll wait to get those through trade. 

I can wait for the base cards, but I couldn't wait any longer to grab an auto. This is my second auto of his and the first one in a Pirates uniform. This cards also goes against a few of my collecting principles: It's not numbered, and it's a sticker auto. But this is the first Reynolds autograph card as a Pirate and I just couldn't wait.

Thanks for reading!

2012-13 Panini Crusade Hobby Box Break and Review

With my latest box purchase, I decided to keep my streak of buying 2012-13 Panini Basketball products. I promise, I'll review something else soon. This is one those "high(er) end" products, so you're basically just buying a box of hits. 

6 packs, 5 cards per pack. 3 Autos, 3 Memorabilia Cards, at hit per pack.

The box:

Shinnnyyyyyyy. 

The shininess can seen by the reflection of my hands/phone. I'm a card collector, not a photographer.

The base cards. Very nice cards. Panini makes it very clear that this is a CRUSADE card. Not sure how I feel about that huge banner. I do like the gold font.

Knight Court Insert. These come one per box. Very similar to the base. They seem to have little value on the secondary market.

Here are the first three Prizms that I pulled. These are the regular Prizms, and are really gorgeous cards. That Andrew Bynum on the left, whom I managed to decapitate with my lamp. He's accompanied by Nick Young and Marcin Gortat.

These are my other three Prizms, rounding out the total of six per box. These come in variety of Parallels: Red & Gold /99, Purple & Gold /49, Green & Gold /25, Gold /10 and Black 1/1.

 At the far right is Jared Sullinger, he fits in with his buddies above. In the middle is Draymond Green, Red & Gold /99. To the far left is Rasheed Wallace, Gold /10.

I'm not high on Green. I loved him in college but he lacks NBA size. The 'Sheed Gold card is a great pull. Very rare and very attractive card.

Here are the jersey cards, all appearing on inserts. The Paul Pierce card is awesome, I love the green swatch. Thomas Robinson has the skills to be a beast, but his character issues seem to outweigh his abilities. I'm not too familiar with Rick Mahorn but another nice jersey.

The three autos. At left, Festus Ezeli. Center, Buck Williams, Right, Quincy Acy. Nothing too impressive here. I love Ezeli's story, but not his NBA potential. Quincy Acy is in the D-League, I'm assuming he'll be overseas soon. Buck Williams was a fun player to watch, I'd say he's the highlight here.

REVIEW

Overall Design: The base cards are nice. The picture is sharp as ever with exceptional contrast. As I've said with previous 2012-13 Panini Products, I'm not a fan of how they throw a huge "PANINI" on the front of the card. It's over-branding. Beyond the base set, the other cards are excellent, especially the Prizms. Some of the nicest cards I've ever seen.

Box contents: There's only 30 cards per pack, so it would take some hunting to complete the base set. It's only 100 cards though, so do-able. The fact that each pack contains a hit is exciting. The Prizms are definitely the highlight of this set. The Prizm checklist is massive 300 cards, with all sorts of names mixed in- past, current, and future.

The Hits: It's definitely possible to hit the jackpot with this product. The Prizm cards are a hot ticket right now. The variety of parallel colors generates excitement, especially the Gold cards and Black cards. If you search the Gold Parallels on eBay, many sellers are asking over $100 for guys that aren't even big names. The black cards are obviously the big prize. The J.J. Redick Black 1/1 is listed for over $400 dollars on eBay, to put it in perspective. Yes, J.J. Redick.

Positives: Design, prominence of short prints, Prizm technology, players from various generations, number of hits guaranteed hits (6), chance for 1/1

Negatives: Autos are stickers, small number of total cards

Rating: 8 out of 10. This is a fun product. It has the high-end feel, but for right around 100 bucks, it's affordable high-end. Also a great way to get your hands on Prizm cards without actually buying a box of Panini Prizm.

As always, thanks for reading and please feel free to comment!