2023 NBA Draft prospect Victor Wembanyama lost a game last night, but he is winning the buzz wars. The spindly 7-foot-2 (or 3?) … center? point-pivot? wing-warrior? … led all scorers in a nationally televised exhibition between Wemby’s French squad and the G-League Ignite stars (led by another top draft prospect) and set Twitter aflame… Read More The All-Lank All-Stars: The NBA’s spindliest supermen
When I restarted my sports card collecting habit two autumns ago, global demand for cards was sky-high and global supply was super low. A would-be collector walking into a big box retailer anywhere in the country with a wallet full of cash in those days (at least a year starting in summer 2020) would almost… Read More Wow, there’s cards on shelves: Finding and breaking a booster of 2020-21 NBA Chronicles
I haven’t been formally diagnosed as of this writing, but I probably have ADHD. I identify with pretty much every symptom/characteristic I’ve seen, including things like “I can’t really focus on anything until I hit something I want to do, then I HYPER FOCUS.” For instance, I had this thought the other day: There has… Read More Right Name/Wrong Name: Fixing the NBA’s team names for fun
Disclaimer: This piece is pretty long. I learned some things in the 48 hours after writing it (and then some more several months later) that made me add a section to the bottom that makes it a bit more definitive in its negativity, but I think it’s still worth reading through, top to bottom, to… Read More Not Fun Trading: I’m trying NBA Top Shot (update: I’m not trying anymore)
The weirdest thing to me about the modern sports card collecting industry, after having awakened from a 25-year slumber of sorts, is finding that an Italian sticker company previously unknown to the vast majority of American collectors had snuck in and taken over the hobby. I remember reading that Panini (like the sandwich?) had signed… Read More I hate/love Panini: A two-sided essay on the current king of sports cards
The thing about being a casual sports card collector in the year of our lord two-thousand-twenty-one is that I’m not really “in the running” for a lot of the more premium cards on the market. I don’t have the bankroll for the /5 autographed Luka Doncic jersey card pushing five figures on eBay with a… Read More The Singles Mixer: A few of my personal basketball faves
When I first started collecting sports cards in the late 1980s and early 1990s, I remember when Skybox hit the scene. It was 1990, and Skybox’s parent company, which I now know was a spin-off of a tobacco company’s memorabilia business (strange and yet somehow such a 1980s American story), packaged futuristic looking basketball cards… Read More Blast From the Packs: An up-and-down box of 1990-91 Skybox basketball
I have a little area on my nightstand with room to display a few sports cards at a time. My bedroom also doubles as my office during the pandemic, so I spend a lot of time facing this little display. I like to change the cards out periodically, but certain favorites have really resisted being… Read More An ode to the Ja Morant Panini Luminance rookie card, ‘The Dunk’
When I started this little experiment in purchasing sports cards from my past off eBay as a way to spur my writing muscles awake from a much-too-long slumber, I said to myself, “this isn’t going to be a big new hobby, it’s more of a writing exercise. Besides, I can’t even afford to buy cards… Read More I hate/love the trading card industry: A two-sided essay
If you’ve been reading my posts about sports cards lately, you’ll know that I keep harping on photography as the thing that draws me to certain cards. A great photo, even if it’s of a player I’m not crazy about, will make a card much more desirable in my eyes. So when a set gives… Read More Blast From the Packs: An ode to Fleer Flair
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