I had to venture way out into the suburbs, but I finally found a Target shelf with new basketball cards on it. I don't know why in this one horse sports town (two if you count the Portland Timbers) it is so hard to find NBA stuff on the big box store shelves. I'm not wild about paying more than $3 for a pack of anything, so at $4.99 this will likely be the only pack of this stuff I buy this year.
77 - Eric Gordon - The design is foil heavy, which means scanners hate it. It would be a lot nicer if the Prestige logo was the foil and there was no weird foil polygon on these things.
52 - Jared Sullinger - The backs of the cards are a bit better, with an eye-catching design and a second photo making up (a bit) for the lack of stats. Sullinger is one of the younger players from the Eastern Conference that I don't get to see play a whole lot.
48 - Robert Covington - The Sixers are tanking for something like the fifth season in a row. I wonder how they're selling any tickets? There's been much buzz about Golden State's record tying 15-0 start, but has anyone noticed that the Sixers are 0-15? It might be fun to wager a little something on whether the Warriors will win more games than the 76ers lose this year.
43 - Derrick Williams - Williams is sort of a role player and hasn't done much this season, but his team has gone from a laughing stock to shoulder shrug so far this season. That's progress!
155 - Chris Bosh - As a huge fan of craft beer, or just beer in general, it was heartening to learn that
Bosh is a bit of a beer nerd. Any fan of Dogfish Head knows what he's doing.
146 - Andre Drummond - Drummond is torching the stat sheets with his crazy rebound totals and spurts of offense early in this season.
141 - Chandler Parsons
24 - Joakim Noah Prestige Pros - On to the inserts portion of the pack. I saw
this picture from the SI Vault on Twitter the other day and...
31 - Pau Gasol Brilliant Beginnings - A couple of things here. #1 - Could the Grizzlies jerseys have looked any more generic and college-y when they first moved to Memphis? #2 - As everyone knows, Pau Gasol was sent to the Lakers in one of the most horrifyingly lop-sided looking trades in NBA history, with LA getting an All-Star for some roster flotsam and a couple of draft picks. As it turns out, one of that bunch of players too insignificant to mention on a ticker if he wasn't a blood relative ended up being a future All-Star of his own and one of the cornerstones of a playoff team. It's funny how that worked out for the Gasols, Pau and Marc.
238 - Jarell Martin - I'm guessing that rookies are a one-per-pack deal. Wikipedia tells me that Martin hasn't seen the court yet due to multiple injuries suffered since the Grizzlies drafted him.
- Panini Dunk! App Ad - I downloaded this a week or two ago after seeing some stuff about it on Twitter. It's pretty much a non-evil version of the Topps digital card apps, with more in common with Panini's virtual sticker album apps than the moneygrabbing Topps things. It's a perfectly fine time waster if you like virtual collecting. And basketball, of course.
