It Only Took One

*caught a head cold so feeling very dreary today, and no, it's not Covid. Throats a little rough and nothing is better for a throat then some warm beverage. Wonders what warm beverage could sooth his throat....only one answer....*

Finding packs of basketball cards in retail outlets is impossible. I haven't seen a single pack of anything basketball since before Christmas and here we are almost a year later. Which in itself is hard to think about.

Why haven't I been able to find any retail basketball packs? Well, that's because of the "Wolf Pack."

The Wolf Pack isn't the fun one from The Hangover, this Wolf Pack comes to hunt down the vendor putting up stock to rip them apart for any sign of retail product they could flip.

 

This is what you will see from a distance if you time it right and arrive when the vendor is there.

When you get closer you will see them ripping ALL OF the retail out of the vendors hands and off the shelves like raw meat only to follow that same vendor to the next retail location to do it all over again. The Wolf Pack are relentless hunters.

Leaving only behind their death and destruction and a lot of Jack Links beef jerky.

 

Grrrrrrrr....

*takes a sip to calm the fueling anger I have for retail flippers, then is calm focusing on the main part of today's post*

Luckily for me, I got my hands onto my first basketball card pack via a contest on Instagram from welovesportcards. Otherwise, I probably would have gone the rest of the basketball season without any.

The pack, I won in a contest, was a 2019-2020 Chronicles basketball, which is one I was really hoping to open since I couldn't find any locally.

So what's next? Let's rip it!

*takes a sip, begins to rip*

 

Every hanger pack of 2019-2020 Chronicles basketball comes with 15 cards. I am not sure what the going price for these were when they came out. As I stated already, couldn't find any.

 

*another sip to soothe the throat*

 

The basis of Chronicles is a spread of different Panini products all into one. Most of the products included in the product do not have their own standalone product anymore but some are new specifically for it.

Each of the sets has it's own base set but fall in order of an overall base set that consists of close to 700 cards. Good luck chasing that down especially with this years rookie class.

My first four cards were not a bad start with the Beard and Chris Paul. 

 

Base Chronicles has 50 cards to collect and Panini Threads has 25 cards to collect.

Then came the league MVP Giannis in which Prestige has 25 cards to chase down .

Up next, Cam Reddish rookie. What little basketball I did open around Christmas it felt like Reddish was in every pack. 

 

Playbook has 25 cards to collect.

Wait...what's this? JA?! Yessssss! I didn't have any rookie cards of him, this years ROY. This pack was already worth the winning victory. 

 

Luminance itself has 30 cards to chase.

Trae Young is a beast. Base Panini has 35 cards to collect.

A Donruss Rated Rookie (Donruss has 5 cards to collect) and another Playbook rookie this time of Jarrett Culver

Wait...Tyler Herro in here? Man, nice! I didn't have any rookie cards of him either and he has been playing lights out in the playoffs. Great pack find. Also featured is his teammate Kendrick Nunn.

Kawhi Leonard  was found for Hometown Heroes Optic which has 20 cards to collect.

Shut the front door...Zion too?!!? Can this pack get any better? Top three rookies in this class all found in here. 

 

Essentials has 35 cards to collect.

And the good pack rip continues, we end with another Tyler Herro, this time a Bronze Parallel from Essentials.

*takes a sip before finishing up today's post and trying to decide how much Vitamin C to take today to help push this cold away*

Thanks to welovesportcards on Instagram for the fun pack rip and rookie card pulls for my PC. I had truly forgotten what it was like to open a basketball pack and I can see why the sport was so much fun this year.

 

As for the wolf packs, I do like how the hobby is booming right now, but at the same time its frustrating with them taking all of the retail in my area just to flip it. If only Zach Galifianakis led this wolf pack, instead of taking all of the retail the worse they would do is end up sleeping on the Walmart roof with someones baby and some pet of Mike Tysons.