Saturday, September 30, 2017

REVIEW:2017 Panini Contenders Draft Picks Basketball

The hype for this years basketball class has begun as collectors are ripping packs to find Lonzo Balls and Markelle Fultzs among others before the rookies hit the court to either drive their values up or decrease them. It's always the best time to buy before a season starts I say. (ex:Aaron Judge)

This is my very first break of the new class and I was pretty excited to see if I could land the next potential star. I will let you guys decide on that in comments from my pulls.

Anyways, here is my break:


In every box of 2017 Panini Contenders Draft Picks basketball, you will find 6 packs per box of 18 cards each. There will be on autograph per pack as well and one parallel per box. Boxes are running pretty high right now at just under $200 per.

I found the base set interesting and surprising in this product as I didn't see the early previews for it. Normally for a Draft Picks product Panini puts players in their NCAA uniforms but this time, there went pro. First time I have seen this from them. I like it.

The base set is only 50 cards deep so a box should cover most of your needs.


This years product also promises one parallel find per box. Mine was a pretty solid Building Block Tickets #'d 10/10 of Kevin Durant.
 
Other parallels you could find include,
- Draft Ticket /99
- Cracked Ice Ticket /23
- Diamond Ticket /15
- Fame Ticket /5
- Championship Ticket /1
- College Ticket and Season Ticket
- Printing Plates /1

Each pack of cards breaks down to 11 base and 6 inserts along with one autograph. You should find two inserts per pack of the following,

Legacy. Takes a players photo in college and in pros.


School Colors, rookies in their college uni's.


Game Day Tickets also has rookies in their college uni's.


No surprise to me that rookies were still in college uniforms knowing it's a draft pick product. You can look for RPS tickets and International ones.

Here were my 6 pulls.

Wesley Iwundu


Thomas Bryant


Edmond Sumner (terrible auto)


Jordan Bell


Tyler Lydon


This final one of Bam is on-card.  You can look for on-card autographs from all of the upper-tier rookies from the 2017 NBA Draft as well as three separate on-card variations! I haven't seen a report yet on which ones were the variations so hard to judge how great of a card this actually is.
 
Other hits not found in my box are COLLEGIATE CONNECTIONS SIGNATURES, TURNING PRO SIGNATURES and LEGACY SIGNATURES.

OVERALL: Well, the price is a bit steep and depending on how these guys play will depend if this box was a gain or a loss. It's too early to tell. The packs felt very redundant with the same expectations in each and it had gotten to the point by pack three where I was strictly looking for the autograph card and tossing aside the rest. I think a little bit of a mix here would help this product. Maybe go back to 24 packs with 5 cards per and don't put in the six inserts every pack and instead spread them out.

I was very happy to see the NBA players in their pro uni's as I am not a collegiate type of collector, but I am not sure about those that are collegiate collectors will feel about this. I do enjoy products that mix pros and college and it especially works in an early release.

In the end, Contenders is Contenders. It's one of Panini's most popular products and one that always holds it's value and popularity in those who seek rookie autographs. The product is a gamble, but could be worth a dice roll here.

Please make sure to take a minute out to thank Panini America for providing this box for me to review and to be able to add more cards to my Player Of The Day promotion. Follow Panini America on all social media sites and visit their SITE, as well.

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