Christmas Breaks, Basketball Edition

I shared some of the highlights from baseball packs in my Christmas stocking yesterday. While my main focus is baseball cards these days, I have a pretty solid basketball card collection as well. My favorite team to collect is the Indiana Pacers, and I have a good player collection of Tim Duncan. My wife, knowing this, included some basketball packs in my stocking as well. So I busted a few packs of 2014-15 Prestige and Prizm.

These are the base cards from Prestige. While I'm not super excited about the design, it's better than versions from years past in my opinion. My wife likes the Wizards so she was pleased to see a Bradey Beal show up. We also pulled a Paul Pierce base card, with him still in a Brooklyn uniform. Can't go wrong with Stephen Curry, arguably the best shooter in the game. And a new Duncan to add to the collection.

For the inserts and parallels, we start with a bonus shots /199 of Gerald Henderson. I was pumped to see the new Hornets logo on a card, but wish Henderson was in a Hornets uniform rather than Bobcats, even if photoshop would be necessary to make it happen.

What's better than a Duncan base card? A Duncan insert shared with the Admiral, of course!

My wife was pretty disgusted with the insert card of Birdman and the Worm, and while I'm not a big fan of either player, I can appreciate what Panini did with the Connections insert set.

And while I was underwhelmed with the Prestige base design, I loved opening Prizm. These cards look great in person, especially the parallels which I'll get to in a bit. A couple of Jazz, a rookie and second year player. My favorite base card from the break was easily the David West, my first Pacer I've added to my collection since 2012. Nice to see some new Pacers cardboard in person.

That's what I'm talking about. An early Shaq image from his days with the Magic. And two of the greatest coaches in NBA history who were also pretty good players.

And finally, the parallels. Included was a pack of 3 red/white/blue parallels, which scanned nicely and look even better in person. Was excited to pull a Hornets card where the player is actually wearing the uniform. Vonleh is not getting much playing time with the Hornets but with Al Jefferson out, he may crack the rotation. I enjoyed watching McGary at Michigan so it was nice to at least pull a parallel of a familiar rookie. He's played in just one game for the Thunder this year as he's battled several injuries. And a parallel of the other Warriors sharpshooter, Klay Thompson. He's averaging 21 points a game for the team with the league's best record.

It was nice to open some basketball packs, and while it's no longer the focus of my collection, I won't hesitate to add Pacers and Tim Duncan to my collection on occasion.