The Ripper's Dilemma

What do I do with this? 

Over the weekend, I hit up the monthly card show for the first time since the end of April. As usual, most of my time was spent poring over the nickel/dime/quarter boxes, and since the summer is over, the retail guy was there in full effect with his discounted blasters. I picked up just my second Allen & Ginter blaster of the year, along with a brand new 2016 Heritage High Number box (more on that later this week) and a 2015 Stadium Club package marked all the way down to $12. Not bad. I also made some other pack and blaster purchases that were less notable, and I even took a shot at a $5 hobby pack of of Allen & Ginter from a box that seemed to still have all of its contents in tact. This netted me my first ever "rip card".

I don't know what to do with this card. From my recollection, there's absolutely no correlation between what is contained inside the card and the player on the outside, hence there's likely no Jose Altuve lurking inside Keuchel's protective shell. There could be metal or wood (or fiberglass or dirty needles), although I'm guessing it's not going to be anything heavy based on its weight. I could just crack this thing open, as I'm not a Keuchel fan or an Astros fan really, but it might have something even more dire waiting on the inside. I watched a couple of YouTube clips with people opening these things up and it pretty much made me cringe. I don't have a single mini A&G card from the "extended" set and I just assumed a long time ago that the whole rip card thing was not for me, so now I'm just stuck with this weird card that I'm not sure what to do with.

The blaster, on the other hand, continued my dumb run of cards that Cubs fans like. I didn't do so well at the bargain boxes looking for Cubs trade bait (because 8 out of every 9 that email me about trade offers seem to love this team), so I guess this is fitting. Lester isn't one of the promising young dudes on the team, but he pretty much destroys the Cardinals every time they face him, so I'm sure these guys love him just the same.

I have been half-heartedly stealth collecting last year's Stadium Club set for awhile now. It would probably be more accurate to say that I've just been waiting for prices to come down, because there's only 5 cards in each pack. I pulled this Mets auto (which is up for grabs), plus some base cards and a few parallels. There was also an insert that I will add to my trade bait box that I forgot to scan. I think I'm just going to go with base cards and parallels for this project.

Here's one last card that I bought on purpose at the show. I paid five bucks for this, which is a Huge Deal for me, because for some reason I just can't talk myself into spending anything more than pocket change on single cards. I passed up a Wesley Matthews Blazers auto in favor of this. Strickland's time with the Blazers was a bit underrepresented and a bit underappreciated. Plus, this is a snazzy die cut (around the right edge of the ball) and has a serial numbered print run. I'm glad Panini continues to make cards of past NBA players, especially for those who aren't the Shaqs and Jordans of the world.

Blazers Post: Playoff Bound

Thanks to a Phoenix loss earlier today, the Blazers are back in the playoffs for the first time since 2003. According to basketball-reference.com, Portland has the number 1 rated offense in the entire NBA and they've been flat out dominating in the past four games. Around this time of year I've had no problem switching to Baseball Mode because it's been so long since the Blazers have been in the playoffs, but this year I'll have to deal with managing the two for awhile. Hopefully it's a long while.

I skipped a week of posting because, after a ridiculously brutal schedule this season, Portland finally got a breather and only played 5 games in the last 2 weeks. The Blazers had won 4 straight going into tonight's game after a tough home OT loss against Philly.

The Blazers are now at 48 wins on the season, which means there are only 2 cards left out of the box of 50 that I picked up at a game at the beginning of the season. I'm starting to scrape the bottom of the barrel as far as what cards are left to scan, but there's one in particular that I saved for either the 50th victory or a playoff-clincher, whichever came first.

About the cards:

• Rod Strickland was already on his way out, as evidenced by the "Traded to Washington" tag across the front. His trade would usher in the Rasheed Wallace era. Strickland was the focal point of the offense for a time in the mid-90s, but I don't think anyone ever refers to a "Rod Strickland era."
• I'm always clamoring for the Blazers to pick up a Mark Bryant type of player, someone who does a lot of dirty work and occasionally knocks the ball in the hoop or knocks an opposing player to the floor. Michael Ruffin could have been that guy, I suppose, but it seems like the guy forgot how to play basketball during all his time off. At least, that's how I have judged him in his garbage time minutes.
• I honestly don't remember what the difference was between a "Member's Choice" Stadium Club card and a regular one.

• The Sabonis card is incredible! The blue sky background is actually some sort of translucent plastic or film. Every time I've gone to a card show in the past six months or so I've found some sort of ridiculous technology that some company tried that makes me spontaneously want to laugh and throw up. On the back, you can see that they reversed the photo, but tried to "fix" it by altering the uniform number. Nothing else looks right about the photo, though. Sometimes I just sit here and mesmerize myself by flipping the card over and over again.
  

Bonus: Playoff time! This was a particularly epic series, as always with Phoenix. Buck Williams is about to make future major KJ drop the ball through the sheer power of his deadly goggle gaze while Terry Porter looks on and decides to stay out of the confrontation.

All-Star Break Blazers Report

It's been awhile since I've done one of these. I'm not really burned out on the Blazers so much as I just haven't known what to say about this team. I think it's safe to say that they've exceeded expectations in some respects while also being rather disappointing in others. Portland has gone 8-4 since I last posted, so I scanned 8 more cards from the lot of 50 that I bought at a game early in the season. If they reach 50 wins, which I feel should be a solid goal, I will happily be able to scan every card in the box. Right now they sit at 32-20 at the All-Star Break, which is slightly off the pace due mostly to an uninspired loss to Golden State on Thursday.

Let's start with the good. Brandon Roy has been good. Crazy good. Scary good. So good that he routinely gets team announcers to say "a quiet 30 points" and you don't think much of it. So good that you're already mentally running up the court to get back on defense as soon as he starts driving to the layup. The guy is an All-Star for the second straight year and should have received a lot more votes than he got, even in the West.

Lamarcus Aldridge has also been good. He hasn't quite been the All-Star that some were predicting prior to this season beginning, but he's good enough that he could have easily been an injury replacement had Shaq's arthritis flared up or had Pau Gasol been arrested for frightening small children with his face. Aldridge has been showing off more post moves than at any point in his career, even though he'll probably always be more comfortable away from and facing the basket. He's a serious weapon, and I would like to see him get more shots when the offense isn't clicking.

The rookies have all made serious contributions to the team as well, and it's something that definitely makes Portland unique in my mind. The Blazers start two rookies - Greg Oden and Nicolas Batum, and Rudy Fernandez is always one of the first players off the bench. Since the injury to Steve Blake, Jerryd Bayless has entered the rotation and single handedly gotten the Blazers back into games with his relentless attacks at the basket and constant movement on defense.

So what is there not to like? The team just isn't beating teams they should be. A good, solid playoff team does not lose to a team like the ex-Sonics. They don't fall behind by double digits in nearly every game in 2009. Winning always seems to be a struggle with this team lately, and the lossses are usually penciled in as losses in the first half.

The Blazers aren't showing much resistance on the defensive end, especially around the perimeter. There are times when it just seems like they turn their defense on like a switch. When it's working, they are one of the toughest teams in the league to play. Most of the time, the switch doesn't seem to be on. Is that the coach's fault? Nate McMillan seems to suggest that he doesn't have players who are good defenders, but isn't he supposed to be a defensive-minded coach? Why isn't the team defense concept working?

About the cards:

• Mark Bryant is now an assistant coach with the former Seattle Sonics. His card is from the Topps return to NBA cards in 1992. 2008-09 will be their last officially licensed set, at least for awhile.
  
• Terry Porter is about to be fired just a half of a season into his first season as Phoenix Suns head coach. Tough break for him.
• I had to look up Dave Johnson's Wikipedia page, because my only lasting memories of him are on cardboard.
• Clyde Drexler is now an announcer with the Rockets FSN broadcasts. If you don't know who he is, then you're probably not reading this post anyway. I liked the hardwood floor design of Upper Deck's first basketball release.
• Rasheed Wallace. The Man, the Myth, the Legend. Not a great card design. It looks like the photo is being squashed by the borders and the borders are closing in on Sheed.
• Rod Strickland got a nice write-up in the local free weekly Portland Tribune recently. The card looks like some of the early/mid '90s baseball designs.
  

• Jerome Kersey was a ferocious dunker and competed in at least a couple slam dunk contests that I can remember. Back then there were a lot more competitors (at least eight?) before Jordan wimped out and others followed suit.
  

• Cliff Robinson ushered in the headbanded Blazer look (he was ahead of his time) and he was pretty much the key player that overlapped the Rick Adelman era and the Jail Blazers era.
  

Bonus: Last night during this season's NBA All-Star dunk "contest", Rudy Fernandez took off his own red Blazers jersey to reveal a Fernando Martin Blazers jersey in honor of the first Spanish player to play in the NBA before proceeding with his first dunk. Martin only played in a couple handfuls of games for the Blazers before returning to Spain to play where he was nationally famous. There were only two things wrong. First off, it always bugs me when a "retro" jersey isn't retro at all (the undoubtedly custom Martin Jersey was done in the current uniform style.) Secondly, the announcers kept pronouncing his name "Martin" a la Martin Lawrence instead of Mar-TEEN, the proper Spanish pronunciation. That, and I think the wonder about the mysterious jersey may have distracted people from the ensuing dunk as Rudy got completely robbed on his scores from the "judges".

Rudy's dunks, by the way, were both impressive and imaginative. It was pretty obvious that the affair was fixed (at least up until the final round), with the pre-planned "plot" that took place between Dwight Howard and Nate Robinson. I think I'd rather watch H-O-R-S-E, er, G-E-I-C-O.

(P.S. Bring back Franz bread Blazers cards!)