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Opening A Pack Of Basketball Cards - Mega Pack | July 1, 2015

To make up for not opening up a pack of basketball cards last week (the Wolves were busy with a draft or something), I bought a mega pack at the store the other day. This included five packs of cards along with 30 random cards from the last 25 years.

Some folks wanted me to start buying "real" cards from hobby shops and you'll be thrilled to know that I have gotten my eBay on and there will be some "real" cards appearing in this column soon.

Just not yet.

Here's what I opened this week. Nothing too wild, but some cards I found fun. 

Pack 1: 2012 Panini NBA Hoops

Card 1: Carmelo Anthony, SF, Knicks

Card 2: Paul Gasol, PF/C, Lakers

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Card: 3: Boris Diaw, PF, Spurs

Card 4: Greivis Vasquez, PG, Pelicans

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Card 5: Ryan Anderson, PF, Magic

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Best card according to eBay: Carmelo Anthony (99 cents… Get rich or die tryin’)

Worst card according to me: Greivis Vasquez. I was a Duke fan growing up, so Vasquez was kind of always low on my list.Not sure if he gets more or less points for this: 

That dance is… something.

Pack 2: 2012 Panini NBA Hoops

Card 1: Brook Lopez, C, Nets

Card 2: Tristan Thompson, PF/C, Cavaliers

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Card 3: INSERT – O.J. Mayo, G, Grizzlies – Spark Plugs

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Card 4: ROOKIE – Jeremy Lamb, SG, Rockets

Card 5: Jose Calderon, PG, Raptors

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Best card according to eBay: O.J. Mayo – Spark Plugs insert ($1.25… WE ARE GOING TO BE RICH!!!!!!!!)

Worst card according to me: Yeah, the Lamb card is a rookie, but it’s a sad rookie. The rest of the players here are at least rotational players. Lamb, a former lottery pick, has averaged just seven points per game over his career. And now he's playing for his third team in four years. Not a great start.

Pack 3: 2014 Panini

Card 1: ROOKIE – Trey Burke, PG, Jazz

 Card 2: ROOKIE – Alex Len, C, Suns

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Card 3: LeBron James, SF, Heat

Card 4: Spencer Hawes, PF/C, 76ers

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Best card according to eBay: This is a three-way tie. Burke, Len and James are all going for 0.99 cents. I would expect the James card to get to about $5 in 10 years, though.

Worst card according to me: Way to go, Spencer Hawes. You just ruined the best pack that we’ve had so far.

Pack 4: 2014 Panini

Card 1: Jeremy Lin, PG, Rockets

Card 2: J.J. Hickson, PF/C, Nuggets

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Card 3: Luol Deng, SF, Cavaliers

Card 4: Danny Green, SG, Spurs

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Best card according to eBay: J.J. Hickson for $1.25? This eBayer must be drunk.

Worst card according to me: This whole pack has disappointed me. I have no comment.

Pack 5: 2012 Leaf Basketball --- All rookies and former players because Leaf probably doesn’t have the rights to the NBA

Card 1: Alex Young, SG, Undrafted

Card 2: Dave Cowens, PF-C, Celtics (Hall of Famer)

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Card 3: Olek Czyz, SF, Undrafted

Card 4: Yancy Gates, PF, Undrafted

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Card 5: Mike Scott, PF, Hawks 99 cents

Card 6: Fab Melo, C, Originally drafted by Celtics

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Best card according to eBay: Tie between Cowens and Scott. They are listed at 99 cents each. Keep getting’ dem checks.

Worst card according to me: Who is Olek Czyz?

With these five packs, I also received a "grab bag" of sorts. It ended up being about 30 random cards from the last 25 years. I actually pulled some decent cards. 

Here are some of the better ones:

A SICK Allen Iverson Pacific “In The Paint” rookie card from 1996. This was kind of a cool card to receive as an “add in”. It’s on eBay listed at $8.40 right now.

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1991-92 Flee Joe Dumars “Team Leader” and 1990-91 Skybox Joe Dumars cards

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A very cool 2003-04 SPX Paul Pierce card. Not worth a whole lot (99 cents on eBay), but still a very awesome card if you’re a Pierce fan.

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1995-96 Skybox Clyde Drexler. Very little value to this card, but Drex is in the Hall of Fame, so that makes it notable.

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The Three Wolves

We got three Timberwolves in the variety pack.

1990 NBA Hoops Randy Breuer

1991-92 Upper Deck Doug West

1992-93 Stadium Club Chris Smith RC

Unfortunately, none of these cards have great money value. But sometimes it’s about more than that.

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Do you remember Rik Smits? I do. Not necessarily watching him play, but just because I remember how tall, skinny and kind of odd looking he was in cards growing up. This is no disrespect to Smits. The guy averaged 17.9 points in 1994-95. 

I received two Rik Smits cards in the grab bag. The “Honor Roll” one is my favorite. It’s like a glamour shot.

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This one is from Sky Box Autographics series, which is actually more of a sick joke. “Hey mom, look it! I just pulled an autographed card! No… Wait… This isn’t autographed! And it’s Drew Gooden! THIS IS MY NIGHTMARE!”

So yeah, it's an etching that looks like an autograph. But it's not an autograph at all. 

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We have another Anthony card from his younger days. This is a Fleer Genuine card for 2004-05, one year off of his rookie season. Obviously they aren’t going to put a ‘Melo rookie in a grab bag, so this is the next best thing. It’s listed as $1.50 on eBay, so it does have some value.

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Topps Finest. I remember those cards. The ones that had a coating over them to protect the card. Stupidly, I always removed the film because at 12 years old because I was an idiot. This was was from 1996-97 of Rasheed Wallace. Cool card of a pretty good player.

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Another well-designed card here of a good player. We have a UD Glass card from 2003-04 when Caron Butler was a member of the Miami Heat.

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And now we have what might be the coolest card we pulled all day. Thanks to Oscar Hernandez for this great artwork/card of Sean Elliot from 1991. Is the card worth 15 cents? Probably ,but who cares. Can we enlarge this so I can hang this as a portrait in my house? Are we sure that this isn't Elliot's cover for his 1988 album, "Basketball is easy. Love is hard"? I certainly hope so. Again, great work Oscar. We appreciate it. 

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Well, folks. That's all we've got for this week. I hope to get some better packs that fans have requested for next week.

Have a safe and fun Fourth of July weekend. As always, thanks for reading. Now go eat some hotdogs.