A Revolution on Basketball Cards

Yet more new basketball cards, featuring the Portland Trail Blazers. 

Time has passed, which means Panini has put out another NBA set. As I write this, I'm pretty sure I'm at least a couple of sets behind in their release calendar, but there's one I'll get to eventually and another one I surely can't afford to be throwing my money at. My quest for new Blazers card acquisitions this season continues as I bought into another eBay group break.

I believe the Revolution brand goes back to the Pacific days. I think Panini owns the old Pacific brands, somehow... really, I'm not sure how. This is sort of a low rent version of Topps (High) Tek, where there are multiple patterns for each base card. There are three vets and two rookies in the base set, and I came up one short on the team set by not getting a Damian Lillard card.

Vortex is one of the inserts. I ended up with two of these. CJ McCollum is not quite on the side of All-Star status, so I'm not sure what kind of trade interest any of his cards would get. I don't really know any basketball player collectors, so I'm not sure what to do with cards and inserts of star players unless I find a team collector who is a fit.

Jusuf Nurkic has actually supplanted CJ in terms of value, as he is now soldily the Blazers second most valuable player. In the first season of a big contract that he signed with the team, he has impressed by taking his game up at least half a notch, which you don't always see when guys get that first big money deal.

Here's one of the other designs. This is a "Groove" parallel. I am glad that Panini put the design name on the back of the card, because it feels like something Topps wouldn't bother with.

Rookies get special treatment on NBA cards, which means an entirely different background pattern here.

Neither Gary Trent (the younger) nor Really Lil' Penny have seen the floor much this season, which isn't terribly surprising considering their ages. Hopefully the practices are going well?