Submitted by Card_Corner on Sat, 11/21/2009 - 23:36
The second Panini release is upon us, and with the holiday season coming up quickly, I cannot recommend a better basketball product for the fan in your house. 2009/10 Panini NBA is a steal at around $45 per 36-pack box. This slam dunk offers a 400-card set made up of 300 veterans and 100 rookies. If your box is collated well, you should complete the 300-card veteran set from a single box. It’s accompanied by plenty of parallels, inserts and even a few duplicates to elate the longtime or brand-new collector.
This is the kind of set that I am thrilled is still part of this wacky hobby. You can have your $100 and $500 packs, but the true nature of trading card collecting still lies with kids. This set provides the best replication of opening packs and finding your favorite stars that I remember way back when I was a kid. In addition to the cards, the little ones will love the stickers of players and team logos they’ll find inside packs.
The cards feature a very clean design with great photos and a matte finish. The backs include the last four years of stats and career totals along with player specs and a brief bio/history. The only thing missing here is player position. Doesn’t that matter anymore? I mean there are guards, forwards and centers, and this is the kind of info that a kid could use to identify the player’s role on the court -- bring it back, please?
A lone box will provide 36 rookie cards, so if you want to finalize the 400-card collection, you’ll have to hit the secondary market or pick up more packs. All of the top picks from the 2009 NBA Draft are included. You’ll find Blake Griffin, Hasheem Thabeet, James Harden, Tyreke Evans, the rest of the top ten and then some. There are glossy parallels, artist proofs (#’d to 199) and even some autographed parallels of the rookie cards if you are lucky enough to unpack em’.
I truly would have been pleased with the product if I was able to simply collate the base set, which of course I did. But to also have the sheer amount of inserts included makes it that much more impressive of a collection. Legends of the NBA such as Jerry West, Dennis Rodman and Sleepy Floyd are represented in the “Legends of the Game” collection. My favorite though is “The Franchise” set. It features a dazzling design that includes an intense action shot and a close up of the featured player jumping through clouds and a digital font that just caught my attention when opening packs and flipping through cards.
20+ packs into the 36 the box holds, I had already felt I got the value I had hoped for in this box. Pack #22 sealed the deal for me. I popped it open and found an autographed Blake Griffin rookie card.
It is products like 2009/10 Panini that give me faith that there are still product developers conscious of younger collectors and the grass roots of the trading card hobby. Thanks to Panini for providing the box for review. I’m ordering a couple more for my kids for Christmas and hopefully, we’ll complete the rookie part of the collection.
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