The Guilt-Free Basketball Card Club (GFBCC) Wants You!

The GFBCC has relaunched! Get basketball cards in your mail for little to no effort... guilt-free!  UPDATED 07/10/2020

This is the sign-up page for the Guilt-Free Basketball Card Club. Dreamy Ed O'Bannon* wants you to join the club! It's free(ish) and guilt-free!

How to Sign Up: Send me an email, direct message on Twitter or reply in the comments to this post. Make sure to include your current mailing address!

What to Do After Signing Up: Wait for cards to show up. Occasionally keep my want lists in consideration (PC / Teams / Sets) when you have some extra cards, especially if you haven't sent me anything in awhile.

Here's a link to the old club page. There are no real rules, and multiple people can claim multiple teams/players. If you only collect guys named Ed, that's cool, too!

Current Teams:

• Atlanta Hawks - CardJunk
• Boston Celtics - Mark H
• Brooklyn Nets - Billy K (Cardboard History)
• Charlotte Hornets - flywheels (Cardboard Collections)
• Chicago Bulls - Jafronius
• Cleveland Cavaliers - Tim H
• Dallas Mavericks
• Denver Nuggets - garyoh2020
• Detroit Pistons
• Golden State Warriors - Billy K (Cardboard History)
• Houston Rockets - RAZ (The Raz Card Blog)
• Indiana Pacers
• Los Angeles Clippers
• Los Angeles Lakers - Jafronius
• Memphis Grizzlies
• Miami Heat - garyoh2020
• Milwaukee Bucks - Chris (The Collector), ToddSteb
• Minnesota Timberwolves - Randy S
• New Orleans Pelicans
• New York Knicks - Billy K (Cardboard History), The Lost Collector
• Oklahoma City Thunder
• Orlando Magic
• Philadelphia 76ers
• Phoenix Suns - garyoh2020
• Portland Trail Blazers - Bulldog (Nothing If Not Random), @jmswyo
• Sacramento Kings - Rosenort (Condition Sensitive)
• San Antonio Spurs
• Toronto Raptors
• Utah Jazz
• Washington Wizards - CaptKirk42

Former (Relocated) Teams:

• TBD

College Alumni: 

• Illinois - Jafronius
• NC State - flywheels (Cardboard Collections)

Specific Players:

• Kareem Abdul-Jabbar - defgav (Baseball Card Breakdown)
• Ray Allen - ToddSteb
• Mo Bamba - KO Rob
• Muggsy Bogues - RAZ (The Raz Card Blog), KO Rob
• Bol Bol - defgav (Baseball Card Breakdown)
• Manute Bol - RAZ (The Raz Card Blog), KO Rob, defgav (Baseball Card Breakdown)
• Earl Boykins - KO Rob
• Shawn Bradley - KO Rob
• Elton Brand - Billy K (Cardboard History)
• Michael Cage - KO Rob
• Marcus Camby - KO Rob
• Clint Capela - KO Rob
• Jevon Carter - Bob Walk the Plank
• Vince Carter - Tim B (I Love the Smell of Cardboard in the Morning)
• Wilt Chamberlain - defgav (Baseball Card Breakdown)
• Tyson Chandler - KO Rob
• Andre Drummond - KO Rob
• Tim Duncan - defgav (Baseball Card Breakdown)
• Mark Eaton - KO Rob
• Julius Erving - defgav (Baseball Card Breakdown)
• Kenneth Faried - KO Rob
• Michael Finley - ToddSteb
• Kevin Garnett - ToddSteb
• Rudy Gobert - KO Rob
• Anfernee Hardaway - Tim B (I Love the Smell of Cardboard in the Morning)
• Allan Houston - Sport Card Collectors
• LeBron James - Tim H
• T.J. Leaf - defgav (Baseball Card Breakdown)
• Larry Johnson - ToddSteb
• DeAndre Jordan - KO Rob
• Michael Jordan - Jafronius
• Andrei Kirilenko - KO Rob
• Damian Lillard - defgav (Baseball Card Breakdown)
• Danny Manning - KO Rob
• Donyell Marshall - KO Rob
• Eric Murdock - KO Rob
• Gheorghe Muresan - RAZ (The Raz Card Blog)
• Dikembe Mutombo - KO Rob, defgav (Baseball Card Breakdown)
• Dirk Nowitzki - Tim B (I Love the Smell of Cardboard in the Morning), defgav (Baseball Card Breakdown)
• Charles Oakley - KO Rob
• Hakeem Olajuwon - Chris (The Collector)
• Shaquille O'Neal - Tim B (I Love the Smell of Cardboard in the Morning)
• Gary Payton - Tim B (I Love the Smell of Cardboard in the Morning)
• Scottie Pippen - Jafronius
• Steve Nash - Chris (The Collector)
• Theo Ratliff - KO Rob
• Dennis Rodman - KO Rob
• Bill Russell - defgav (Baseball Card Breakdown)
• Dennis Smith Jr. - Tim B (I Love the Smell of Cardboard in the Morning)
• Larry Smith - KO Rob
• John Starks - Sport Card Collectors
• Ben Wallace - KO Rob
• Bill Walton - defgav (Baseball Card Breakdown)
• T.J. Warren - Tim B (I Love the Smell of Cardboard in the Morning)
• Spud Webb - RAZ (The Raz Card Blog), KO Rob
• Buck Williams - KO Rob
• Jayson Williams - KO Rob
• Kevin Willis - KO Rob
• Serge Zwikker - Tim B (I Love the Smell of Cardboard in the Morning)

Other Requests:

• 1990's EX2000, 1990's SPx, 1995-1999 inserts - Sport Card Collectors

* Incidentally, Soft Focus Ed O'Bannon wants you also to know that he will one day be responsible for collegiate athletes getting compensated for their likenesses in video games... and, tragically, the complete demise of college video games.

Basketball Cards for You (and Me)

Time to renew your free membership for free cards. 

It's been awhile since I've taken a look at the list of Guilt-Free Basketball Card Club members. I have scores and scores of cards to send out to people and am planning on a pretty serious purge of any unclaimed teams or players in the near future. If I haven't heard from you in awhile, please contact me and let me know if you want some basketball cards for pretty much nothing (that's why it's "Guilt Free"). All I ask is that if you run across some Blazers cards you think I might like, or really anything else from any of my collecting interests, just keep me in mind. No strict trades, no details, no guilt.

Please also let me know if you've signed up before and are interested in other players/teams not listed or are no longer interested in certain things. Just visit the page, and let me know.

Here are some members who I am considering for deletion if I don't hear from soon. It's not that you've been bad, I just haven't heard from you in a long time or don't have your mailing address (that last bit eventually becomes important.)

• Catching Up With Collecting (Ryan H)
• Henry M
• View From The Skybox
• Mariner1
• Potch (Darren W)

Here's just one example of a card that would get sent to the Great Auction Site in The Sky if no one signed up for the Warriors (seriously, no one likes the team that won 2 out of the last 3 championships?)

One Basketball Card Club member in great standing is Twitch, who is responsible for sending me the sweet CJ rookie jersey card and many other great cards of late. Let's take a look at what else he sent recently.

Hey, it's an original sketch from the man himself. Nic Batum was one of my favorite Blazers, so much that he was the first player of any sport whose shersey I decided to purchase. (50% Adidas employee store discounts help.) I still wear it on occasion, especially during basketball season/

Twitch sent Cards cards, and since this is a Cards blog first and foremost you were probably expecting that. Someone at Panini who gets to crop old photos and digitally remove logos really needs to do a Reddit AMA one of these days.

The Matt Carpenter backlash this year has been tremendous, and tremendously stupid. No, he isn't having an All-Star season at the plate like he usually does. Yes, all those walks are good for him. You'd think with all of the progress we've made as baseball fans with advanced stats and whatnot, no one would be overlooking Carpenter's contributions in getting on base with frequency despite not taking bases with contact as often as normal.

The once and current Cardinals closer: now in pink flavor!

Twitch also remembered that I like the Eagles, which is something that comes up on occasion. Brent Celek is one of my favorite Eagles. He's one of the only links to the Donovan McNabb era and he's an old school fundamentals-over-athletics tight end that just happens to have caught a ton of passes in his career. He's a great "bail me out" option in the passing game, which just so happens to be my go to move in every football video game I've ever played.

Shady, from a Panini Black Friday promo, numbered to just 25. I think this is some sort of "Black Ice" card?

Finally, it's Press Proof Rated Rookie parallel of new and current QB Carson Wentz. If things go the way of the hype train for Wentz, this card could be worth a pretty good chunk of change. On the other hand, it could also end up as exciting as a Bobby Hoying rookie Press Proof card. I suppose we'll wait and see.

Basketball Club Renewal

If you like NBA cards, read this. 

I made some updates to my Guilt-Free Basketball Card Club today, cleaning up the list a little bit by purging a few people I've lost contact with and adding some folks from the Super Traders list. In a nutshell, this completely free to join list gives me a chance to offload basketball cards to people any time I decide to put some money down on some packs. I like the NBA, and I like opening packs and looking at cards. But in the end, I only want the Blazers cards (and Ducks alums.)

If you're interested, all I ask is that you send me an email with your current mailing address and consider sending me a card or two somewhere down the road if you have anything you think I'd be interested in. I don't keep tabs on people; there's no Karma Points system. If you are on the list and want to be removed or make any changes, let me know as well. If you used to be on the list and aren't any longer, drop me a line!

And now, here's a bunch of cards that I will be getting rid of (with some exceptions).

I've fallen hard for the latest Panini Prizm set. The cards just look really nice. After scoring a jumbo rack pack of packs (or whatever those things are supposed to be called) last month, I went in for a discounted $15 blaster at the most recent card show.

There are refractors ("Prizms") and colored Prizms and they also make parallels of the inserts, just to confuse everyone. This is a Fireworks Prizm. Or a Prizm Fireworks.

Just regular old Fireworks here.

I don't think this is an insert card or anything, but I have a serious question that I wanted to ask. How is it that no one has claimed Steph Curry? Or his defending champion Warriors team? Is it because the Blazers thoroughly embarrassed them the other night? No one wants to step up? I guess I can send all of his cards to COMC or something. (I don't actually have massive piles of Curry cards. I tend to exaggerate.)

Marketing staffers spend hours and hours in meetings coming up with new names for insert concepts. Emergent.

It turns out that the Orange Prizms don't scan well, at least when I try it.

Elfrid's wild hair is not well seen on this card.

I have to confess that I never liked Isiah Thomas at all.

I believe I ended up with 3 different Jimmy Butler cards in this box. The green Prizms scan nicely.

Dirk! In one of those laughably terrible 2015 All-Star jerseys.

And here's just a plain old Prizm.

I also bought a blaster of Panini Complete, this year's super low budget offering. I have to say that I really like these cards, despite how thin they are. Something about the matte finish and low price point usually works for me. These are reminiscent of some mid-'90s Fleer baseball sets.

There are both Home and Away jersey-based inserts, with the Away (I believe) being the rarer of the two.

There are two parallel versions to collect, silver (one per pack) and gold (1:36 packs I think?) Mo is wearing a big man number.

Kristaps! People seem to like this guy.

And now for the cards that you don't get to have...

Here's my first card of former Duck Joe Young. He almost single-handedly willed Oregon to the big tournament last season.

Mason "Not Miles" Plumlee, our starting center here in Portland. He's been fun to watch.

Here's two versions of CJ McCollum's card.

With the complete roster overhaul this past offseason, Meyers Leonard is now (along with Damian Lillard) the longest tenured Blazer. This is weird to think about.

Guilt-Free Basketball Card Club Sign-Ups (Free!)

Sign up now for the Cards on Cards Guilt-Free Basketball Card Club! The short version is, I want to get rid of NBA cards while continuing to buy (and not feel guilty about) the occasional pack or box. You pick a team, or a player, or whatever. If I've traded with you in the past, I'll just send stuff when I feel like it. If I haven't, you'll be accepted provisionally - just send me a few Cardinals, Blazers and/or something from my want lists to get the ball rolling.

Any questions? Let me know. Want to sign up? Do it here. Don't feel like commenting publicly or want to tell me a 3 page story about how Dwight Howard ruined your life? You can email me. It's cool.

[updated - 12/1/17]

Current Teams:

• Atlanta Hawks - dayf, Jeff Jones
• Boston Celtics - Mark Kaz, Mark Hoyle
• Brooklyn Nets - Cardboard History
• Charlotte Hornets - Cardboard Collections
• Chicago Bulls - Jafronius, Jon of Community Gum
• Cleveland Cavaliers - Tim H.
• Dallas Mavericks - Play at the Plate
• Denver Nuggets
• Detroit Pistons
• Golden State Warriors - Cardboard History
• Houston Rockets- Raz
• Indiana Pacers - Card Stacks Blog
• Los Angeles Clippers
• Los Angeles Lakers - Padrographs
• Memphis Grizzlies
• Miami Heat
• Milwaukee Bucks 
• Minnesota Timberwolves
• New Orleans Pelicans - The Junior Junkie
• New York Knicks - The Lost Collector, Card Papoy
• Oklahoma City Thunder
• Orlando Magic
• Philadelphia 76ers - Twitch
• Phoenix Suns
• Portland Trail Blazers - Backstop Cards
• Sacramento Kings - Condition Sensitive
• San Antonio Spurs - Cardboard Hogs
• Toronto Raptors - buckstorecards
• Utah Jazz - Bump and Run
• Washington Wizards - CaptKirk42

Former (Relocated) Teams:

• Cincinnati Royals - Cardboard Clubhouse
• New Orleans Jazz - The Junior Junkie
• San Diego Clippers - Baseball Card Breakdown

Specific Players:

• Chris Paul, Blake Griffin, Kevin Durant, Grant Hill - Jon of Community Gum
• LeBron James - Tim H.
• David Robinson, Mark Price, Kyle Korver, Iowa State (Jeff Hornacek, Kelvin Cato, Fred Hoiberg, Victor Alexander, Marcus Fizer, Jeff Grayer, Jamaal Tinsley, Royce White, Dedric Willoughby, Loren Meyer, Jackson Vroman, Paul Shirley, Craig Brackins, Justus Thigpen, Will Blalock, Mike Taylor, Julius Michalik, Sam Mack), Jeremy Lin - Royals and Randoms
• Lawrence Moten, John Wallace, Syracuse - Classon Ave/Adventures in 1952 Topps
• Team USA - Play at the Plate
• Deandre Jordan, Rudy Gobert, Andre Drummond, Kenneth Faried, Tyson Chandler, Joakim Noah, Serge Ibaka, Earl Boykins, Andrei Kirilienko, Ben Wallace, Eric Murdock, Theo Ratliff, Michael Cage, Kevin Willis, Manute Bol, Dikembe Mutombo, Larry Smith, Charles Oakley, Buck Williams, Dennis Rodman, Mark Eaton, Shawn Bradley, Marcus Camby, Danny Manning, Donyell Marshall, Jayson Williams, Clint Capela - KO Rob
• Elton Brand - Cardboard History
• Jamal Murray - buckstorecards
• Malachi Richardson - The Lost Collector
• Tim Duncan, Wilt Chamberlain, Bill Russell, Julius Erving, Dikembe Mutombo, Manute Bol, Kareem Abdul Jabbar, Dirk Nowitzki, Bill Walton, T.J. Leaf - Baseball Card Breakdown

See this post for the background story.

Guilt-Free Basketball Card Club

I have a problem. I want to continue to buy NBA cards, but they're taking up too much room in my home. I have very limited collecting interests in the NBA: just Blazers cards, former University of Oregon players and one particular set (more on that later.) The problem is, I feel guilty about buying basketball packs any time I buy them because there just isn't the community-wide interest in these cards that there is in baseball. Buying Blazers cards as singles is just not an option for me because the price markup around here is outrageous (expect to pay at least $1 a card for even the worst player on your active roster.) Plus, going that route just isn't as fun, and I'm in this game for fun above all else.

What I'd like to do is continue to buy basketball cards because I like looking at them and scoping them out, but I don't want to keep them. Well, most of them. And that's where you come in. I want to set up a "guilt-free" club, where I no longer feel guilty when I buy cards because I know that all of my Knicks cards are going to Collector Z, my Pacers cards are going to Collector G, and so forth. If there's enough interest in this, I'll set up an official sign-up page. I already have a couple of people in mind as I recently sent all my Celtics cards (sans doubles) to Mark Kaz and have sent Charlotte Bobcats cards in the past to Colbey at Carboard Collections. This doesn't mean that you need to send me basketball cards in return, either.

This is essentially intended to be a free offering, or at least "free-ish". If I've never traded with you before, I would at least require a good faith" send some cards my way first" type of trade for the first offering, but anyone I've dealt with in the past would get these things as long as I have a current address for you, at least until you change your identity because I keep sending you Nate Robinson cards. If there's enough interest, I'll also offer up some exceptions, like picking out a player or group of players rather than a team, or "all cards where Dwyane Wade is getting dunked on." Stuff like that. I've had great experiences with collectors who I've sent cards to out of the blue and vice versa, and my hope would be that if I added a basketball team to a few people's trade stacks that it would catch on and do great things for my storage space.

In the meantime, I mentioned a particular set above that I've secretly wanted to collect for awhile. When I first heard about Panini reviving the Donruss line for basketball cards and making it a pseudo tribute to 1984 Donruss baseball, I was skeptical. I was very skeptical. As it turns out, I fell in love with it almost instantly. Full bleed photos, a much thicker than usual (for Panini) card stock, team cards, Rated Rookies (?!)... what's not to love? It's also a big enough set that there's actually more than each team's top 2 or 3 players to collect, but not so burdensome that you'd have to buy boxes and boxes. (I think?)

As I mentioned, one of my collecting interests is former UO players. This extends to football as well. Currently, Aaron Brooks and Luke Ridnour are the only players consistently found in current sets that went to UO. Ivan Johnson is another active player whose last school was Oregon, but he was kicked off the team almost 7 years ago and only recently showed up in the NBA. Terrell Brandon was a high level PG in the '90s and Blair Rasmussen was a serviceable center in the '80s, but other than that only a smattering of other Ducks have NBA cards as success at the next level has been fairly scarce.

There are parallels in this set. I haven't decided what to do with them yet, but I may hang onto some of them. I have pulled a few green ones (which might be a retail only thing?) and a blue one numbered to 49 (happened to be a Laker which I couldn't bear to scan).

The one that got away...

These Production Line inserts are fun. I mostly have bought jumbo rack packs so far, which are an insanely good deal in comparison to the single packs. There's four of these in each jumbo. I wish these had stayed on the shelf for longer than a week or two around here. If it wasn't for me snagging some of these jumbos at the card show this month from Retail Guy, I probably would have eventually given up on this set.

See? Rated Rookie! I know they didn't completely nail the logo, but still...

I will probably try to trade or sell the hits. This one is numbered to 399. I know very little about which players people are hot after in terms of basketball cards. I just know which ones are actually good.

I actually got this Wade jersey card in my very first pack. Unless I traded it away for some reason, it should be filed away somewhere. It'll likely go up for sale or trade at some point. I don't remember if it's numbered or not.

People rip on the classic Donruss '80s card backs all the time, but this still gives me warm and fuzzies for some strange reason.

I'll have a want list up for this set soon. In the meantime, drop me a comment if this sounds at all like something you'd be into. I have plenty of '90s cards (hoo...ray?) and am accumulating a fair amount of recent stuff as well.