Wednesday, March 25, 2020

2019-20 Panini Contenders Basketball


New basketball cards were pretty tough to find on the shelves this (past?) season, as retail flippers started running rampant throughout the hobby. Zion Williamson picked up the torch passed to him by Luka Doncic's hot cards from a season ago. Somehow I found a blaster of Panini Contenders that was past its expiration date. Here's one of the packs.


31 - Donovan Mitchell - Let me just say that Contenders isn't the most imaginative product. You get the same stuff and the same kind of design year after year. People mostly seem to be into it because of the autographs, I guess? I don't mind the look, it just seems like I've seen it all before.


88 - Paul George - With all of the natural backgrounds taken out of the photos in this set, the posed shots of players in their new uniforms do not look so out of place.


46 - John Collins - Collins was hit with a sizable suspension earlier this season, which caused my fantasy team's hopes to take a hit. Imagine that... being concerned about your fantasy team!


79 - Mike Conley Red Game Ticket - Here's my first basketball card look at Mike Conley as a member of the Jazz, where he's been somewhat underwhelming so far. This is some sort of red parallel.


29 - Darius Bazley Draft Class - This insert doesn't look all that different from the base design, except that it's been turned on its side.


90 - Russell Westbrook - Another old guy, new team.


48 - Jonas Valanciunas - The penultimate card.


6 - Andrew Wiggins - We end with Wiggins, who has since been dealt to the Warriors.

1 comment:

Fuji said...

I found a bunch of these blaster sitting at my Target a few weeks ago. Grabbed a few in hopes of pulling a Zion, but haven't opened them up yet. After seeing this design (which looks like every other Contenders design), I'm not in any rush.