Box Break and Review: 2019-20 Panini NBA Hoops Premium Stock Hybrid Box

The Pirates are not a good baseball team right now. They're fully committing to a rebuild and I'm OK with it. They're trading away their major league talent for very young prospects, so there's not a ton for me to chase in the baseball world. Couple that with the fact that the card market staying red hot, and it's caused me to spend most of January "hobby time" selling as opposed to buying cards. 

As my cards funds have built up, I wanted to treat myself. In a shameless effort to continue milking the 2019 rookie class, Panini decided to re-release 2019-20 NBA Hoops during the 2020-21 season with a new product called NBA Hoops Premium Stock. It's NBA Hoops as we know it with two changes: New photography, and a chrome finish.

I'm a sucker for chrome, and NBA Hoops is one of my favorite basketball products. I had my eye a box of this for a while, and was excited to get a decent-enough price on Blowout to pull the trigger on a "Hybrid" box, aka, a Hobby Box.

Each Hybrid box only contains 24 cards. There are no guaranteed autos, which is unusual for a hobby box, but Hoops has never been an autograph-centric product. In this instance I'm totally OK with it. A guaranteed auto would jack up the price, and there's a 99% chance I'd pull a no-name.

One thing I love about the Hybrid boxes is that all of the cards are Flash parallels, pictured above. They pop off the card a little more than the standard chrome and have a rainbow refractor glean to them, along with the north-south striping. These are your "base cards" for a Hybrid box, but they are not true base cards. The true base cards exist in the retail products and have more a standard chrome finish. Think: Topps Chrome.

Here's an example of the standard chrome from eBay:

Here are all of my veteran base cards:

Getting just 24 cards isn't ideal, but the fact that that all cards are guaranteed to be Flash parallels is cool. No one too notable here except SGA.

While we're looking at the veteran base cards, I'll take the time to point out a major printing flaw that unfortunately made an appearance in my box. See the image above, and notice the lines that I circled in red. Those thick solid lines on the border of these four cards are not supposed to be there. They're so well centered in the middle of the card that at first glance, they almost look as if they're part of the design. Sadly, they are not.

To be fair, I was warned about these flaws prior to purchasing. I saw some pictures on Twitter that showed some of the print flaws. I got the box anyway and figured "It won't happen to me!" And of course it did. Live and learn.

Here we see the Flash Red parallels. Cool to pull a Knick, would be better to pull a Knick that plays more than 0.0 minutes per game.

This one is my favorite of the three Reds. The Tribute cards are part of the base set, but have a nice throwback design. Sweet picture of Iverson.

I pulled one Green Flash parallel, which is numbered to /99. 

I also pulled a Purple Flash parallel, numbered to /35. I'm excited that it's a rookie. Quinndary Weatherspoon certainly wouldn't be my first choice for a short printed rookie, but I'll gladly take it. The Spurs have done a fantastic job of developing young players lately - Keldon John and Lonnie Walker come to mind - so this could be a good card to stash away.

Each box promises two Silvers. Both of mine were vets.

Here are my rookies. Kabengele and Schofield are still waiting to see some real minutes. Alexander-Walker has worked his way into the Pelicans rotation and has been a solid role player for them this season.

The Wizards suck, but one of their bright spots is their young forward, Rui Hachimura. He's awesome and this is a sweet card.

This one definitely felt good. Zion is undoubtedly one of the guys you want to see when opening a 2019-20 basketball product, and this card alone makes the break worth it for me. For a while, hitting a Zion meant the card went straight to eBay to help reimburse your box/pack purchase. Selling this on eBay today would earn me back about 25-30% of my purchase price, and that's not worth it to me. I think we're transitioning into "hold" territory with Zion. 

And you know why it's best to hold? Because Zion isn't the hot new thing anymore. He's not a prospect. Therefore the value of his cards is declining. The hilarious part is, the dude is actually panning out. Remember all that hype around him? Well, it's actually happening!! The hype was real! He's 19th in the league in PPG, 30th in RPG, and 9th in FG% - in what is essentially his first full season. Better yet, he's been fully healthy and hasn't any injury concerns. He has a real chance to be an All-Star this year.

But, he's not a rookie anymore! He's not the next big thing! So no one cares about him anymore. I think I'll hang onto this one for a while.

Each box promises one Rookie Photo Variation per box, which is an enticing offer since the rookie class is so loaded. Here's mine. Doumbouya hasn't seen a ton of minutes for Detroit but at least he's a consistent part of their bench rotation. Detroit is bad - very bad - so I hope they'll give him a bigger role and to see what they have in him. 

REVIEW:

Overall Design: The Hoops design is always clean, and this year is no different. The new photography and chrome finish only add to the appeal for me, and I really love the Flash parallels.

The Hits: No guaranteed autographs or memorabilia products. Hits will come in the form of short printed parallels. You could also make an argument that the top rookies are hits. With a good amount of color and a loaded rookie class, there's plenty to chase here.

Positives: Card design, checklist, array of parallels. 

Negatives: Potential printing lines on cards, no guaranteed hits, recycled product/money grab by Panini.

Rating: 8.5 out of 10. This is a really fun product. There's no question that Panini is "pulling a Topps" here, if you will, by slapping a new card stock on an existing product. I'm not upset about it. In this case, they took a product I already love and made it better. I was leaning towards a rating of 9 out of 10, but the print lines are definitely a real problem and seem to be relatively common. That earned a half point deduction. Otherwise, there aren't any major drawbacks. It's not a perfect product, but it's pretty awesome. It's definitely expensive, but compared to other 2019-20 basketball products it's actually pretty affordable. Grab it if you have the means.

Thanks for reading!

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!

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.