Random Wax: 2022-2023 Hoops

22-23 Hoops:  Dame is back in Portland where he should be.  He'll be out this season with injury but hopefully this is the path to him ending his career as a Trail Blazer.  I'm a huge Lillard fan and he's my favorite Trail Blazer of all-time.  So good in his prime, he's a 7X All-NBA, 9X All-Star and was chosen to the NBA's 75th Anniversary Team.

Some big man love.  Bam Adebayo is only 27 and has already been named to the All-Defensive Team 5X.  And he's played in two NBA Finals.

Keegan Murray just secured a 5 year $140M rookie extension.  He's averaged 13 ppg and 6 rpg while shooting 37% from deep in his career in Sacramento.

Dorian Finney-Smith on a Teal Explosion Parallel while Davion Mitchell is on an appropriate Purple Parallel.  I like that Mitchell photo.

A couple of Hoops Tribute inserts and a Pure Players insert (which I still don't get).  But great pulls.

This pack was reduced in price when I bought it in March of last year.  I'm really happy with it and this design definitely says Hoops to me.

BREAKDOWN:

30 – Total Cards

4 – RC

2 – Hoops Tribute

1 – Pure Players

1 – Purple Parallel

1 – Teal Explosion Parallel

Butterfly Kisses (2018)

Butterfly Kisses:  Butterfly Kisses falls into the found footage horror genre.  In this one, two college students invoke a local legend and document it on film.  Where it is different, is that a filmmaker finds the footage and tries to prove they it is real.  People don't believe him which spirals him into a bad place.  Add on top of that, the filmmaker is unlikable throwing in more questions about the footage.  The questions about the authenticity is where this sets it apart from other found footage movies.  I liked it.  It's not great but the subtle difference makes it a good watch.  The ending was not as fulfilling as I would want but it doesn't mean you shouldn't watch the movie.  Its newish take on the genre is good. 

2025 Score-a-Treat Football (20 Packs)

2025 Score-a-Treat:  Halloween is this Friday, so this is a perfect time to debut this scary offering.  Jonathan Taylor is having another really good season as are the surprising Colts.  

These utilize the 2025 Score design as the base for the Halloween inspired cards.  Decent design.  The border is basically the same as last year which is disappointing.  

We get plenty of rookies as well as they make up 20 of the 60 cards pulled.

These are sold in "bundles" which have 40 packs with 3 cards in each pack.  Easy cards to include when giving out candy on Halloween.

I like the backs though nothing here says Halloween.  At least Panini's basketball Halloween cards gave us a spooky vibe on the back too.

My big complaint is the lack of variety.  Last season's design gave us plenty of bat and pumpkin options.  Bat parallels were basically half your pull.  This season's set has the base pumpkin look and three parallels: #/399 Bats, #/99 Trick-or-Treat, or the new #/31 Webs.  And I didn't get one parallel in the entire bundle.  Fail Panini, fail.

I always love the retired greats and Joe Cribbs is a player I remember well from growing up rooting for the Bills.  His stats won't blow you away but he was a fun player to Buffalo fans.  Kellen Winslow has always been a fan favorite of mine as well as so many others.  A great tight end.  Hope you enjoyed our spooky beginning to Halloween week!

BREAKDOWN:

60 – Total Cards

20 - RC

4 – Retired Greats

COMC Tom Glavine Pickups

 Tom Glavine knows a thing or two about playing in the World Series.  This patch commemorates the 1995 World Series.  He was the series MVP pitching 14 innings to a 1.29 ERA including 8 scoreless innings in a Game 7 1-0 shutout.  Hard to come up much bigger in that moment.  The scan doesn't do this card any justice.

2014 Topps Update Series - World Series MVP Patches

I purchased this lot from COMC in 2022 as part of a bigger order.  So many great cards.  That 2017 All-Star is my favorite of these three cards.  Even though it's not an action shot I remember that look from Glavine so well.  Tom Glavine is one of my top 5 all-time favorite players.  

2019 Topps - 1984 Topps Baseball
2017 Topps New Era - 1987 30th Anniversary
2019 Topps - 1984 Topps Baseball All -Stars

I normally try to block out the New York Mets days, but I like that photo.
2017 Topps - All -Time All -Stars
2016 Upper Deck National Convention - Prominent Cuts
2008 Upper Deck

We need more Highlights cards like this.  2007 was Glavine's last year in New York and went 13-8 in his age 41season.  He ended his career with 305 wins, 2X Cy Young, 10X All-Star, 1995 World Series MVP, 4X Silver Slugger and of course induction into the MLB Hall of Fame.

2008 Upper Deck Season Highlights

So many fun cards and designs amongst all of these.   This 2014 Topps Archives below is maybe my favorite of this lot.  That 1980 design has always been one I really like even without a team logo.  Enjoy the World Series!

2018 Topps - 1983 Topps

2009 Upper Deck 20th Anniversary Retrospective

2018 Topps Archives

2014 Topps Archives

2025 World Series: Los Angeles Dodgers at Toronto Blue Jays

 We get Los Angeles and Toronto in the 2025 World Series.  I think this could be a really good series.  I know LA is 9-1 in this post season and their starters are coming off a dominant sweep of the Brewers in the NLCS.  But the Blue Jays are a good team.  You don't win 94 games by accident.  The key for both teams is to get past the starters in my opinion.  The Dodgers have the advantage starting Yamamoto, Glasnow, Snell and Ohtani. But the Blue Jays' offense is really good, and it showed in beating the Yankees in the Division Series and beating the Mariners in the ALCS.  It's led by Vladimir Guerrero Jr. who is having an outstanding playoffs.  Overall the Toronto offense has been solid.  I think this is the key.  Can that offense get to the LA starters?  I'm hoping for a Blue Jays win, continued good hitting from Vlad, and a good series.

2025 NBA Fandom

 

My brother-in-law got me into the NBA in the late 70s, early 80s.  It started with the Statis Pro Basketball board game and playing basketball.  This was a time when the NBA Finals were played on tape delay until 1982 so seeing the players names really cemented them for me.  We played that game a lot.

Starting in 1979 games were on cable and I was able to start seeing the games consistently.  I was hooked. This weekend I purchased the NBA League Pass.  A first for me.  The grandsons are showing interest in the NBA.  I've already toyed with getting a subscription so maybe this helps grow their fandom.  I subscribed to Hoops and Basketball Digest magazines for the longest time.  Loved both of those.

I also played basketball for a hot second in junior high but I did play a ton of intramural basketball in junior college and in the Air Force.  My knees will attest to that.  ;)

My favorite teams are the Atlanta Hawks and Portland Trail Blazers.  I grew up on TBS, so I became a fan of everything Atlanta.  Somehow, and I still don't remember how, I became a fan of Portland even before that.  Doesn't matter I'm a true fan of both.  Portland won a championship but I can't claim being a fan at the time.  I think I remember it but.  Still I love that team.  My favorite players from each team are Dominique Wilkins and Damian Lillard.

My go to sports site for basketball stats is Basketball Reference .com.  I'm a stat geek at I love how easy it is to navigate and all the great information it provides.  Hoops Rumors is my go-to for NBA news.  Online I'm in simulation leagues on the free site Pennant Chase .com.  I'm also a big NBA 2K fan and I'm already playing NBA 2K26.  I don't do all the cool things the game offers but I still really enjoy it.  I play as an all-time team vs another all-time team.  I love playing with all the legends.  I'm working to play Statis Pro Basketball again.  I really enjoy being able to play players from any era as well as keeping the stats from the games.

I have two Dominique jerseys.  The classic Hawks red jersey ('82-'92) and his Team USA jersey.  The only other basketball jersey I have is a Buck Williams Nets white jersey ('83-'90).  My favorite basketball card sets are 76-77 Topps Tall Boys, 90-91 SkyBox, 91-92 SkyBox and 91-92 Upper Deck.

My best all-time starting 5 is below...  Plenty of room to argue.  I argue with myself over this all the time.  I have Hakeem right there with Kareem.  MJ is the GOAT in my book.  I've watched him and LeBron play a lot.  And it's no knock on LeBron.  MJ is just the best player of all-time in my opinion.

My favorite players in the NBA today.  The first three are in order.  After that it's more fluid.  I think Nikola Jokic is the best player in the sport today.  He's so fun to watch.  Very smart and just seems to be good at everything he does.

My favorite players all-time.

I've been wanting to do "fandom" posts for each sport for some time now.  This is my first.  Thanks for letting me just spit ball on what is probably my favorite sport right now.  Enjoy the start of the season!

2024-25 Panini Haunted Hoops (20 Packs)

24-25 Haunted Hoops:  The NBA season starts today so let's do some new basketball cards.  Who will Luka and the Los Angeles Lakers be this season?  They should be better but will they find the defense and big man presence they sorely lacked last season.  They did pick up Deandre Ayton who is a legit center who can get them some rebounds, but we'll see how it works overall.

I really like that Giannis photo.  We also have a Slime Parallel Kevin Durant.  Not my favorite Hoops design overall but it does feel like Hoops and is a mirror image of 24-25 Hoops.  The webs added to the non-parallels are nice, but I'd like to see a bit more.

Youngsters get their time in the 325 card set.  Jared McCain had a really good rookie year, but an injury sustained last month means he'll miss the start of this season.  Still, he's looking good on the slime parallel.

Each Haunted Hoops bundle has 40 packs with 3 cards each.  There is one parallel per pack.  I wish there were more parallels or more parallels in each pack.  I do like both of the parallels.  These packs are intended as options to give trick or treaters on Halloween night.  The possible parallel pulls include:  Orange, Slime, Holo webs, Holo Bats #/399, Holo Trick-or-Treat #/99, Holo Sky #/31.

What are the odds of pulling three of the same card, with parallels?  Here we have a Holo Web Parallel, base Hoops Tribute and Orange (Pumpkin) Paralle of this Jaylen Wells Hoops Tribute card.  The parallels really help this design in my opinion.

The backs have a little flare but nothing too crazy (and there should be more).  I haven't looked at a release schedule, but this should be one of the last Panini NBA products with Topps taking over the license this month.

That Alperen Sengun is a Holo Web Parallel.  Enjoy the start of the NBA season.  I'm excited for a new year and "hope" for my Hawks and Trail Blazers.

BREAKDOWN:
60 – Total Cards
15 – RC
12 – Orange (Pumpkin)
8 – Slime
3 – Hoops Tribute
2 – Holo Web Parallel