2024-25 Panini NBA Sticker and Card Collection

 

Panini is back with another round of NBA basketball album stickers to collect. I picked up a box of these along with an order of Panini Points redemptions to make myself feel better about having to pay to ship what are intended to be free replacement cards.

367 - Dalton Knecht - Knecht had a few big games early on in his rookie season, enough to make him briefly fantasy-relevant. Panini modifies their completely made up 'RC' shield to read 'RS' on these, as in "Rookie Sticker".

451 - Domantas Sabonis - Sabonis is one of the stars of today's game, especially from a fantasy basketball perspective.

384 - Ja Morant - This year's foil cards are kind of an eyesore. The background kind of looks like a printer that is running low on ink.

159 - Dalen Terry - I don't really know much about Terry, but I haven't watched a lot of Bulls games recently.

226 - Tyler Smith - Another rookie, er, RS!

7 - Fred VanVleet (Card) - As in the past several years, each pack includes one full-sized card. The design is basically the same aside from the addition of the Panini logo in the upper left-hand corner.

2025 Topps Heritage Rack Pack

Greetings!

Hope everyone is doing well.  We're in the unofficial second half of the baseball season, after the interesting ending to the All-Star Game in Atlanta.  

I was fine with the swing-off, but I thought they were going to play a 10th inning.  I also think the fans should be able to vote for at least 1 of the 3 participants for each side.  Sure, every year they'd vote for Ohtani and Judge, so MLB can make a sure that says the fan vote winner cannot be the same player 2 years in a row.  So if Judge is chosen, he can stay loose in case he's needed for the end of the game, knowing he can't be chosen the following year (and Aaron Boone won't get stuck with Jonathan Aranda as his last chance player...nothing against Aranda, but I'm not too sure Boone really wanted to have him be the 3rd player when he submitted his line-up).

Topps Heritage was released back in April.  I figured someone like the legendary Night Owl would have posted a pack celebrating the 1976 set over here, but oh well.  Here's the pack given to me for Father's Day; let's see if the boys chose wisely:

#148 - Shohei Ohtani

#112 - Jung Hoo Lee

Starting off strong with the chubby All-Star icon.  Lee has spent some time on my Fantasy Team (I'm still kinda bummed the blogosphere couldn't get a Fantasy League going).

#205 - Emmanuel Clase / Ryan Helsley – League Leaders

#152 - Marcell Ozuna

Clase is not gonna lead the league in saves this year.  MLB better make some changes.

#57 - David Peterson

#34 - Nathan Eovaldi

#157 - Geraldo Perdomo

#49 - Josh Naylor

There's 500 cards in the set, with cards 401-500 short printed.  Unlike last year, it's better to have the short prints at the end of the checklist, as opposed to the start.

#374 - Pete Alonso

#163 - Keibert Ruiz

#306 - Luis Guerrero (RC)

#109 - Tyler Gentry (RC)

Guerrero has pitched in 13 games so far this year (9 last year), while Gentry has only played a total of 3 games so far, all last year.

#272 - Ha-Seong Kim

#68 - Craig Biggio / Cavan Biggio – Father and Son

There's 5 cards in the Father and Son subset.  Ha-Seong Kim's in Tampa Bay now.

#288 - Michael Kopech (Chrome)

Not every Rack Pack comes with the shiny card, so you'll have to believe me that this is a shiny card.

#291 - Rhys Hoskins (Light Blue Sparkle Chrome)

#259 - Dylan Cease (Color Match)

I'm pretty sure I got the names of these parallels down right, but don't quote me on it!

#351 - Bradley Blalock (RC)

#212 - Giancarlo Stanton

#38 - José Berríos

3 more cards to end the pack.  I thought Bradley would be related to Hank Blalock, but apparently not.

Here's the backs because 1976:

Anyway, that's the pack.  Heritage is usually a solid release so you can't go wrong with trying it out.  Hope everyone has a good week, and thanks for reading!

2025 SAGE Low Series Premium Pack

 

Can you believe that college football is kicking off again in a matter of weeks? I honestly don't know where this year has gone, although I'm sure I say something similar to this around this time every year. I believe I picked up this pack in some sort of repack situation. I'm not sure if "Premium Pack" means that it's a hobby exclusive or something else, but I'm guessing this will be fancier than a blaster pack.

A-OT - Ozzy Trapilo (Autographs Red) - Right off the bat we have an autographed card. I believe this is the red parallel version, as all of the parallels in this product seem to be color-coded based on design elements around the border. Trapilo is an offensive tackle from Boston College who was taken in the 2nd round by the Chicago Bears.

84 - Jordan McCloud (Green) - Strangely, this pack seems to be front loaded with the auto and subset cards. McCloud was at 4 different schools over 7 (!) years in college and went undrafted.

96 - Leshon Williams (Green) - It's another Next Level subset card. Williams is now at Kansas as a redshirt senior after four seasons with Iowa.

91 - Moose Muhammad III (Green) - Muhammad spent his entire college career with the Texas A&M Aggies but went undrafted this past spring.

84 - Jordan McCloud (Silver) - Here's McCloud's Next Level card again, this time in a silver parallel version.

1 - Cam Ward (Silver) - At long last, this is what the base design looks like... except that this is also a silver parallel. Spoiler alert: there are no base cards in this pack. I guess that's what "Premium" gets you. (Base cards have a black arrow thing going up the side.) Ward is one of the biggest names in the set as he was taken #1 overall back in April by the Titans.

32 - Dontae Fleming (Green) - Fleming played for Louisiana and Tulane, went undrafted and then caught on with the Minnesota Vikings.

9 - Woody Marks (Green) - Woody Marks sounds like the name of a coach from the 1960s or something. He started off with Mississippi State before heading to USC for his final season, and was drafted in the 4th round by the Texans.

62 - Tre Harris III (Green) - The last card of the Premium Pack is Tre Harris III, who was taken in the 2nd round by the Chargers after splitting time with Louisiana Tech and Mississippi.