Opening A Pack Of Basketball Cards - A Big Finish | July 30, 2015

This was the week I was supposed to go old school. I bought a few packs from eBay and we were going to go back in time. It was going to be fun.

But the person I ordered the cards from sent me five packs of baseball cards. Did I return them like a responsible human being? Nope. I opened them because I’m still 12 years old. No value at all in those packs.

So I walked to Target and got a pack of Excalibur from Panini. Pretty cool cards. They were $3.99, so let’s see if we can surpass that price in value.

Enjoy!

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Decent player. We’ll see how he develops under new coach Mike Malone. He’s  going to have to improve his defense. As far as card value, though, this doesn’t do a whole lot for us.

Fun fact that I learned about Faried from this card: On March 13, 2015, Faried finished with 24 points and 17 rebounds in a win over the Warriors. Wait, how did the Nuggets beat the Warriors?

Price according to eBay: $1.99. That seems incredibly generous. This is a common card at best. Faried isn’t a star in the league, yet. 

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Same thing as Faried. Good player, but nothing wild. 

Fun fact that I learned about Bradley from this card: Bradley scored 23 poitns against hte Suns on Feb. 23. These facts aren't very fun. I think the intern just went to Basketball-Reference for all of this. 

Price according to eBay: Again, $1.99. But nobody is buying, so that doesn't mean a whole lot. 

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We probably took a step back here. GIVE ME SOMETHING EXCALIBUR!

Fun fact that I learned about Sullinger from this card:  “Sullinger uses his relentless motor and soft shooting touch to lead Boston in scoring and rebounding on countless nights.” Props to the intern who wrote this.

Price according to eBay: I can’t find anything, but you can get the whole Celtics set for $9.95. We are already a third there!

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I’ll be honest. I don’t know a whole lot about Powell.

Help me out, Basketball-Reference.

The 45th pick in the 2014 draft averaged 3.1 points and 1.7 rebounds per game in 29 games with the Celtics and Mavericks. Not overwhelming, but solid from a second-rounder.

Fun fact that I learned about Powell from this card:  In his first D-League assignment, Powell finished with 26 points and 21 rebounds. Not too shabby.  

Price according to eBay: $5.99! GIVE US ALL THE MONEY! And there’s actually a “watcher” for this one. Mmm. Maybe we should try $4.99?

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The only thing I really knew about Zoran was that he was Goran’s less-talented brother. How did he do in his rookie season with the Suns and Heat?

In 16 games, he averaged 1.8 points per game. He’s already 26 and he just got traded to the Celtics, a team that will probably release him – according to reports. Not a huge ceiling for good old Zoran.

Fun fact that I learned about Dragic from this card:  More D-League madness. In a March 6 game as a member of the Sioux Falls Skyforce, Dragic finished with 22 points and five assists.   

Price according to eBay: $5.99 again! I’m quitting my job. LET’S GET RICH. There are no watchers for this, though. I bet we could maybe get $2 for this. 

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Finally, some sort of resemblance of a valuable card. I was disappointed that this wasn’t a 3/490 limited type of card, but here we are. And by looking at the price below, I mean, Lillard’s card has to be more valuable than Dragic or Powell’s cards, right? I don’t know. I’m confused.

Fun fact that I learned about Lillard from this card: Did you know he grabbed 18 rebounds on March 4 against the Clippers? I did not know that. Good for you, Dame.

Price according to eBay: $0.99. Oh yay. 

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Two rookies and two inserts in one pack. That’s not bad. Especially when you get the best basketball player over the last 15 years. If you were a collector, would you sell now or hold out? The price below almost pays for the entire pack. Then you would just hope you could sell one of the rookies or Lillard for 75 cents and boom. You made a cent!

Fun fact that I learned about James from this card: James passed Adrian Dantley, Robert Parish and Charles Barkley on the NBA all-time scoring list before the 2014-15 All-Star Break.

James currently sits in 25th place. He’ll probably pass Artis Gilmore and Jerry West next season to rank 23rd all-time.

Price according to eBay: $3.25!  And people are bidding on it! And there’s still 11 hours and 20 minutes left! Let’s make some money, folks!

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After some research, I’ve determined that this is an Orange Parallel card. Each pack has one Orange Parallel, and you could do worse than Butler here – a guy who emerged as a star last season. Still not sure,

Fun fact that I learned about Butler from this card: On Dec. 27 against the Pellies, Butler was 9-of-10 from the free-throw line. Seriously. These facts couldn’t be more fun.

Price according to eBay: I wasn’t able to find this card on eBay, but it looks like it could go anywhere from 50 cents to $3. Maybe I’ll toss it on there to see if we get any bites.

All in all, a decent pack. Started off slow but gained some steam as we went. Good work, everyone.