TARGET MADNESS - Part 2: Basketball Relic Repacks

Here's some more of the useless crap I got from Target this winter while I was bored to death waiting for the '09 products to come out. If only American Heritage or Mayo Football had been out (or if Heritage High Series hadn't been so annoying) I might have avoided this stuff. When you've got a serious pack ripping itch and you're standing in front of a card aisle filled with Updates & Highlights, Bowman Football and The Tale of Despereaux packs panic sets in and you buy stupid stuff. Target has had these blister packs on sale for a couple of months now with two packs of basketball cards and a memorabilia card for $5.99. This was actually one of the more sensible stupid worthless things I could waste my money on to tell the truth. I like basketball, my Hawks are looking good for a playoff spot and you're getting a 'hit' in every package for 6 bucks. Ok, so the hits are utter garbage and you're buying two moldy old packs that didn't sell in the first place for full retail for the priviledge of pulling that garbage, but at least I wasn't buying $20 repack boxes.

I'm not going to admit to the exact number of these things I've picked up, but I will show off the first one, the best one and the worst hit I pulled. So now you know I bought at least three, which is more than enough to be able to mock me mercilessly.

Probably two thirds of the packages I've seen had the same two packs as this blister had: a 2007-2008 Bowman Draft Picks and Stars pack and a '07-08 Fleer Hot Prospects pack. The memorabilia card is wedged unprotected inbetween the two packs

2007-2008 Bowman Draft Picks and Stars

59 Jason Terry
124 Alando Tucker RC 0813/2999
16 Pau Gasol Chrome
11 Yao Ming
28 Zach Randolph

You know why I'm not really upset at Panini getting an exclusive NBA license? Because it means Upper Deck finally got smacked by some of their own hubris, and because it means that Bowman Basketball is dead forever. Bowman Basketball is the lousiest, rottenest most worthless useless dog of a set ever. Five cards in a pack. One of the cards is a Chrome parallel. Base rookies are serial numbered and short printed 1:7 while Chrome rookies fall at 1:9 packs. All this for $2.99, the same price as Baseball and Football Bowman only with half the cards. To. Tal. Gar. Bage. Too bad, because the cards look decent. This pack isn't terrible, as I got a Yao, I'm a fan of Jason Terry from his Hawk days and the rookie I pulled actually made the team (although is recovering from knee surgery now). It's still not a good product which is why this pack is on the front of most of these repack blisters.

2007-2008 Fleer Hot Prospects

5 LeBron James
10 Yao Ming
30 Jermaine O'Neal
SC-11 Walt Frazier Supreme Court
$2 off Spalding Elevation Basketball

Typical Fleer semi-premium type set with 4 cards in a pack for 3 bucks. I got tired of these kind of packs in 2003, but I can't complain about this one. King James, Yao and to top it all off a card of Clyde Frazier. Not bad. The coupon is expired though, so no new basketball for Dayf.

Here's the big hit hiding between the two packs:

2006-2007 Topps '52 Style Kurt Thomas jersey

Well that's pretty neat looking. It's got the retro '52 charm but is just different enough to not trigger the involuntary twitching I get when Topps reuses that same damn design for the 500th time. Kurt's not a star or anything, but he's had a nice career as a power forward who can grab some boards.

Here's the best package I've gotten. The packs aren't great, but the hit was spectactular. I should have quit while I was ahead.

2007-2008 Topps Trademark Moves

48 Dennis Rodman
38 Chris Bosh
79 Jared Dudley RC 0668/1999
31 Shawn Marion
10 Tim Duncan

I hope Panini continues to put retired players into their sets, because that's one thing I've really liked from Topps the past few years. To be fair, Upper Deck did it too as long as you didn't mind that their retired players were Michael Jordan, Mike Jordan, MJ, Michael Jordan (23), Michael Jordan (45), His Airness and Michael Jordan. No Wizards allowed. The card of The Worm is nifty. Yeah, he was is a flake, but he also focused on defense and rebounding in an era of scoring titles and ESPN highlights. So good for him. Every time I pull a Tim Duncan card I keep thinking he's one of the stars from the '80s. That shows just how much I hold his game in high esteem. The rookie card is decent as Dudley is still on an NBA roster playing off the Suns' bench. I consider an NBA rookie card pull to be a success if the guy actually plays in the league. This mindset is from pulling literally hundreds of second round and free agent signing scrubs out of mid-'90s packs.

2007-2008 Upper Deck blaster pack

185 Carlos Boozer
JC-10 Jordan Chronicles
68 LaMarcus Aldridge
34 Jason Richardson
13 Rudy Gay

I've seen more and more of these skinny blaster packs in repack stuff. This is a half pack, not a real pack. I liked the Upper Deck basketball design better than the '07 baseball one. Taking out that border on the right makes the photo look much better. The pack is ok, there are some minor stars and a Jordan card. I hate Michael Jordan. I can't stand him. He's so freaking annoying and I'm tired of hearing about him. He lost that damn dunk contest in Chicago too, everybody knows it. Hey Panini - lay off the Jordans. It's a new era, do new things. Except for the Topps retired player stuff, keep that up.

All right. Here's the jersey card that had me dancing in the streets:

2005-2006 SP Game Used Edition Kevin Willis Authentic Fabrics Jersey

Wait, what? I built up this card like it was a Joba Superfractor and it's this?? HEY. I watched Willis kick ass at the Omni in the '80s, and this card has a Hawks logo on it, even though the jersey swatch is from the Spurs. This is my favorite hit, not yours. What else did you expect from a repack crapper?

Now that you are thoroughly underwhelmed by the best hit, just imagine the horrors I have awaiting for the worst. Actually, don't imagine it, just look at it right now:

2006-2007 Bowman Sterling Sergio Rodriguez Autograph

I was kind of surprised to see a Bowman Sterling card in there. I guess it's not that bad a card, and Madding at the very least would be happy with it. Sergio is actually logging minutes on the Blazers' bench. But great googely moogely, just look at that terrible signature. This thing rivals Gellman's favorite autograph stinker, Chris Johnson. Plus it's a holographic sticker auto on top of some weird Chrome texture. And yes, there are autographs in these repacks, just expect terrible ones like these.

Thank Jesus that Heritage is a little over a week away. I need to be spending my money on something I actually collect instead of buying more of these things, even if the Willis is in my top five pulls for the year so far.