Hoopin' with the Blazers

New basketball cards are here. 

 

We're already halfway through February and more than a third of the way into the NBA season. It's strange, then, that 2020-21 NBA cards are just now hitting the shelves for the first time. I bought into a break from Rip City Cards (no relation to the real Rip City) and ended up picking up the Blazers team set multiple times over. This is probably the only way I'm going to be able to get new Blazers cards this year as the basketball card market is officially shadier than the drug trade these days.

There are just seven cards in the Trail Blazers team set, including four players that started the majority of the games last season, a would-be starter if he ever stayed healthy, a random bench guy and the team's second round draft pick. The draft pick is CJ Elleby, who went to school at Washington State. It's nice to see the team draft a Pac-12 guy. Elleby hasn't had a ton of minutes yet this season, which is to be expected for a second round pick, though he did have a big game in Philadelphia recently. Yes, Portland has two CJs now.

Here's the Dame card. This was taken at the Moda Center last season from one of their two home losses to the Lakers (not sure which night without checking that NBA jersey site). You can tell it's not from the playoffs because there are obviously people in the stands. I did notice that there are a few cards in the recent 2019-20 Hoops Premium set that have photos from the bubble, but it looks like Panini is trying to do what they can to avoid that here.

I just don't like this design at all, I'm afraid. As much as I liked the shot of Damian Lillard going to the hoop past Anthony Davis, this photo of the original CJ is just kind of awkward.

Here's the random bench guy. Anfernee Simons did play in 70 of the team's 74 games last season and had a fairly key role off the bench, but if you were limited to picking just one bench guy I would have expected Gary Trent Jr. to get the nod here.

Hassan Whiteside was one-and-done as a Trail Blazer, and his role diminished greatly with the return of Jusuf Nurkic as you would expect. Unlike normal years, it looks the new basketball sets (Hoops, Certified, Donruss, possibly Prizm) will not have any logos or indications of players that were traded or signed elsewhere in the offseason. Given that the Blazers have two new starters this year (three if you count Enes Kanter who has been filling in for Nurkic once again), it looks like I'll be waiting awhile add new Blazers to my team collection.

Zach Collins won a starting job at the start of last season, played a few games, got hurt, then came back and started again in the bubble... only to get hurt again. We may have seen the last of him as a Trail Blazer, but hopefully he can get his health and career back on track.
 

I also picked up a couple of purple parallels in the break. This doesn't really improve the design.

Melo's inclusion in the set was a no-brainer, of course. He agreed to a bench role this season and is playing for the league minimum for the second straight year, but he's found a lot of space to be a big contributor. If he continues on the tear that he's been on lately, he could make a strong case for 6th Man of the Year.

I wound up with just one insert card, and it's sort of a mess. I had to read it several times to realize it's called "Prime Twine"... which... yeah, I get it. In any case, it's nice to add another Dame insert to my team collection.

If you have any basketball cards that you think I might like, please hit me up. I'll be interested to find out how you're actually finding those cards. I have extra Blazers from this set if anyone is looking.

Trail Blazers Virtual Cards

The team's own custom cards, if you will. 

To celebrate their 50th anniversary, the Portland Trail Blazers planned a series of "Decades Nights" throughout the season, to honor some of the top players from the team from each decade. Fans are allowed to vote on a "team" of the decade among a pre-selected grouping of players, and the games themselves have been pretty fun. I went to the '90s night late last month and will be going to Sunday night's 2000s night. Part of the voting process is selecting from a sort of a rolodex wheel of Blazers players each represented on what totally looks like a basketball card that's probably supposed to be era appropriate.

Well, first off, let me say that I immediately regret not saving some of the images from the previous rounds of voting before they were lost to the sands of time (thanks, new internet!) I'll try to illustrate my point with what little I have to work with here.

⭐Introducing your 1970s Decade Team ⭐

Thanks for participating in our decade team voting presented by @toyota & @SpiritMTNcasino. Voting for the 1980s team will begin soon! pic.twitter.com/KTQeUYv9NZ

— Portland Trail Blazers (@trailblazers) November 2, 2019

First off (sorry, it's a Twitter video), we start off with a '70s Topps design for the 1970s team. This is the 1973-74 Topps only with a black background/border instead of white. I seem to remember these actually being white when I first saw them, but this was back in October and I'm probably just wrong.

For the '80s team, the Blazers mocked up cards in the iconic 1990-91 SkyBox design. These kind of looked era appropriate, but we all know that this set is... well... just after the '80s expired. This was also the first indication that the voting for any given player was confined to a single decade, so no Porter, Drexler or Kersey in the '80s set even though their exclusion was kind of distracting considering the card design that was being used. They would be held over for the '90s set.

Here's where Clyde and those guys ended up.

See, it's the 1991-92 SkyBox set. I think they did a good job with it, all things considered.

At this point, I was highly interested in seeing what they would use for the 2000s. Are there any memorable card designs from that decade that some Blazers intern could use to whip up some quick player "cards"? I had my doubts, and here's what they turned out.

Unless I'm missing something, it looks like they went super generic here, and just went heavy on the dreaded silver accents in their uniform design from the era (which they have finally deemphasized.) This feels like a letdown and also is pretty much what I expected.

I wonder if B-Roy will finally make his return to the Rose Garden on Sunday (doubtful.)

I'm expecting the next (and final) round of voting to be based on the overall look and feel of their website and social media accounts, but we'll see.

UPDATE - per request from Chris, The Collector, I dug up one more of the videos. I couldn't find one for the '90s team, however. Enjoy!

⭐Introducing your 1980s Decade Team ⭐

Thanks for participating in our decade team voting presented by @toyota & @SpiritMTNcasino. Keep an eye out for 90s voting coming soon! pic.twitter.com/04jC9me3jk

— Portland Trail Blazers (@trailblazers) December 20, 2019

UPDATE 02/23/2020 - here's the 2000's Team.

⭐Introducing your 2000s Decade Team ⭐

Thanks for participating in our decade team voting presented by @toyota & @SpiritMTNcasino! pic.twitter.com/ObDKji8nqj

— Portland Trail Blazers (@trailblazers) February 23, 2020

Whatever Works

The Trail Blazers advance to the Western Conference Finals for the first time since 2000. 

For anyone who knows me personally, as a lifelong Blazers fan, I never really fully bought into the Dame-and-CJ vision for the team. They're two small guards who need the ball in their hands and like to take shots. Too much duplication of skills, not enough size and defense or whatever. Two scoring point guards trying to fit in a starting lineup. I've always liked CJ McCollum's game, but have always wondered what he could do in another setting while thinking of what Portland might be able to bring in return for him.

Well, this little experiment has been going on for quite some time, and has finally earned the team a berth in the Conference Finals against another starting backcourt known for long range theatrics. Sometimes, whatever works is whatever works, and it's brought the Blazers this far. With teams bearing down on Damian Lillard, CJ has offered up some incredible games. It's been an exciting season that has led into an even more thrilling playoff scenario. Game after game, round after round... this has been fun! Both teams are beat up, but it's mid-May and there are still more basketball games to be played.

Eight down, and eight more to go!

A Tale of Two Blazers Breaks

One was great, and one was not so great. 

In my continued quest to be a little smarter about my card purchases, I went back to the eBay well and bought into a couple of breaks. As usual, I snagged the Trail Blazers. Last year's Donruss Optic had a "Fast Break" configuration that includes some parallels and fancy sparkly signed cards. While I didn't get any of the parallels (and there are way too many parallels in Panini products especially), I was able to finish off my Optic base team set and ended up with this gaudy Damon Stoudamire sticker auto. Not bad! I wish the Blazers could wear throwbacks like the one Stoudamire is wearing, which I believe dates back to around 2004?

On the other hand, Panini's Crown Royale is a hobby only (I think?) product with an all-die cut set. It probably has some nice inserts and such, but I wouldn't know as I only ended up with two of the base cards and nothing else.

There's a certain amount of failure built in to every group break, just like any pack or box one might purchase. I didn't check the configuration carefully, so it's entirely possible there just weren't many cards available in this auction. I still need to track down most of this team set, now that I know it exists. I just won't be all that motivated to, because as a product this Crown Royale set just feels a little flimsy and gratuitous.

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?

New Hoops

A new crop of basketball cards, featuring the Portland Trail Blazers. 

I dove into the deep, shark-filled waters of eBay group breaks to get my first taste of 2018-19 NBA Hoops. My logic was sound: I can avoid buying all of the packs and boxes and just concentrate on the team that I collect. And it all would have worked out splendidly if it wasn't for that lousy collation!

There are 10 Blazers in the 300 card base set, but I didn't get a single copy of the Damian Lillard or CJ McCollum cards, while getting several copies of other cards. Fun!

The base design is, you know, fine. It's Hoops. It doesn't really change. I didn't bother scanning the backs of any of the cards, because if you've seen the back of one (Panini) Hoops card, you've seen them all.

I mentioned a lack of a Lillard card, but Dame actually has two cards in the set for whatever reason. The final 20 cards in the set are part of a "Tribute" subset, and have a different design. Mostly, these are retired players, but there are a few current ones sprinkled in for some reason.

Nurk!

Rookies are shown in one of their media day poses over a dark wooden backdrop. Pretty standard stuff.

Trent was a one-and-done Duke star, and is the son of former Blazers draft pick... you guessed it... Gary Trent!

Big Z is having a big year already. This is exciting.

Ah, but there were inserts, too. Amplifiers crank up the volume in the crowd, apparently. I can't complain about an insert concept I haven't seen before, though.

Two of the Amplifiers out of a ten card set are Blazers, so CJ joins Dame here. He shoots threes at a high volume, but so does everyone these days.

Damian Lillard stars here on another insert design that I'm not as much of a fan of. We really don't need the same photo twice.

The draft picks that they got to pose for these photos are going to probably have a good laugh at these in a few years. Or, at least, we all will. Anfernee (yes, he was named after Penny Hardaway) skipped college altogether, playing out a year in purgatory at a prep school. He looks all of 13. The Blazers are playing the long game with him. It would be cool to see it pay off.

Lest ye accuse an eBay seller of messing with the base cards (why would they?), you can see (ye can see?) that I didn't get stiffed on a hit. Everything is a sticker auto in this low end product, but I was happy to get a brand spanking new Blazers autograph.

Good stuff all around. I just need to find the rest of the team set.

Team Set Special

Panini's blister pack NBA team sets contain a special bonus this year. 

During the second half of the Blazers recent overtime victory over the Charlotte Hornets, Erin disappeared for a bit to the team shop and picked up a 2017-18 NBA Hoops Blazers team set for me. Usually this blister pack product just has the regular base cards in it and nothing more, but it appears that there's an exclusive bonus this time. I wasn't able to find much info online about this, but this link to the official NBA Store website probably has as many details as anyone could expect to find.

Essentially, each team set contains a special blue parallel. I expected this to be the regular blue parallel you can pull from packs, but it appears to be something entirely different. I'll get to that in a moment.

I did... almost... polish off the regular team set with this purchase. I consider Allen Crabbe's Nets card a must have for my collection, since he's still pictured in a Blazers uniform. Noah Vonleh joins Crabbe in the ranks of ex-Blazers as he was shipped off to Chicago as a cap casualty, a term I am borrowing from the NFL.

The Blazers traded up to get Zach Collins, and after a slow start to his career he has settled into the rotation, which is what ultimately forced Vonleh out. Collins famously never started a college game and hasn't really logged a ton of minutes in his career, so you would expect it to be several years before he fully forms into an impact player.

Here is that bonus card. As you can see, this is more similar to a blue color that we saw with the Walmart Topps baseball parallels from 2011-2014 than the color of the parallels from you can pull from packs. Also worth noting is that the NBA Hoops logo itself is rainbow reflective.

I also just realized that I hate describing what cards look like. I'd rather just collect them.

Blazers in Stickers

They're not real cards, but I put them in binders anyway. 

The new NBA season is upon us, whether we like this or not. I felt the need to seek out new cards from the new season, but was thwarted at every turn. Fortunately, the internet and stickers (a crazy combination!) were there for me. I bought a bunch of 2017-18 Panini NBA sticker packets, guys!

The Blazers stickers are adorned with the new team logo, but the players are pictured in last season's Adidas duds. Damian Lillard is not a dud, so he gets the foil treatment.

It looks like some of the star players get multiple stickers, while a number of players are left out altogether. It's kind of like society. I think there's a foil CJ in addition to this non-foil.

I did get other stickers besides Blazers players, but those are getting filed away for future padded envelopes. By the way, if you do like basketball and like one of those other teams, maybe you should check this out. There are still something like a dozen unclaimed teams.

This is one of these cards stickers that truly makes me cringe as a team collector. I really don't want this, and yet, it will end up in one of my binders. Crummy.

Pulling on Threads

Yet another new Panini basketball set. 

I think we're finally close to the end of the 2016-17 NBA calendar, but Panini is still cranking out sets by the bucketful. I bought in another group break from Steel City Collectibles, this time getting the Blazers (of course) in a Panini Threads break.

I didn't fare as well this time as last, when I snagged an auto from one of the Blazers rookie bench dwellers. I did manage to pick up the team set (for the most part) as well as some nice inserts, like this High Octane Glide card.

The Blazers are going for a uniform redesign next season with the switch to Nike, so I'm hoping we've seen the last of these unfortunate red jerseys. I vastly preferred the red jerseys the team wore in the '00s.

This lot was heavy on Dame cards, which is what you'd expect with the team's only player to play in an All-Star game.

Lazy card backs.

This Floor Generals insert mentions Lillard's 40 PT/11 AST game against Cleveland early in the season, but shows him playing against Denver.

More Dame inserts.

McCollum goes by CJ rather than C.J., but I've yet to see this acknowledged on basketball cards (or his Wikipedia page for that matter.)

Nurkic was the man that saved the season for the Blazers, or at least the guy who came along and pulled the Blazers out of a deep funk into mediocrity and an 8th seed. He also got hurt. Hopefully he is fully recovered for next season. When I mentioned that I got most of the team set, it was because of the standard group break rules that sent me this card of Nurkic in a Nuggets uniform with a Blazers logo, but leaves me still needing Mason Plumlee's Blazers uniform/Nuggets logo card.

Included in the break were some Panini Day packs. I'm not sure what Panini Day is -- maybe it's a new holiday that all of the kids are talking about?

I think these are hobby exclusives. I got to knock two of these off my list, at least.