A Pack(et) A Day: 2007/08 Panini UEFA Champions League Update

APAD cintributor, John in the UK, sent me another (unsolicited) goodie bag full of football cards to bust here. First packet up is from Panini: 2007/08 UEFA Champions League Update.

For those of you who don't follow football, the UEFA Champions League is a competition that crowns the club champions of Europe. When it was first devised in the 1950s (as simply The European Cup) it literally was a "Champions League" -- only those clubs that had won the championship of their domestic league the previous season were allowed to participate. Since then, the competition -- which runs concurrently with the domestic leagues -- has been expanded to include more clubs, most of whom come from the larger and stronger countries.

Of the 51 winners of the Euro Cup/Champions League, 33 have hailed from the "Big 3:" England, Italy, and Spain. Not surprisingly, all three of these countries send up to four clubs into the Champions League. Despite this, the champions of the smaller nations also are invited; however they are, for the most part, eliminated before the group phase (the "real" start of the competition) begins.

The group phase of the 2008-09 Champions League begins later this week. In addition to the usual suspects, (Chelsea, ManU, Fc Barcelona, Inter, et al) for the first time teams from Belarus and Cyprus have advanced to the group phase.

For those of us in the States, ESPN2 and ESPN Classic will be showing games this Tuesday and Wednesday afternoon. If you have a chance, take a late lunch and check 'em out.

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2007/08 Panini UEFA Champions League is 250 cards, followed up with a 100-card Update set. This packet is from the Update series, which was released only seven weeks after the first. It features players who changed teams, or "transferred," before the start of group play.

A Pack(et) A Day: 2007/08 Topps EPL Match Attax

APAD's new contributor, John in England (a.k.a. "jackplumstead"), sent along a care package stuffed with soccer cards. A couple of months ago, I spent two weeks in Ireland looking for some of these things, and was unsuccessful. A couple of months later, some guy in England who I've never met before, sends me a pack of Panini Euro2008, a pack of 2006-07 Magic Box Shoot Out Player Update, five packs of 2007-08 Topps Match Attax, and a Match Attax Fulham team set.

Damn it feels good to be an APAD contributor.

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The Hobby over there is a little different than it is over here. For one thing, "sports cards" as we know them in this country don't really exist. There are no autographed cards, no game jersey cards, and no $100 lotto-packs. Instead you'll find a lot of what we had in this country 20 years ago: cheap base sets and Panini stickers.

2007/08 Topps Match Attax is actually a CCG; but despite this, it's pretty comprehensive -- which is more than what you can say about most baseball card sets these days. The set has 360 cards (18 players for each of the 20 EPL teams) with 40 of those (two for each club) designated as "Star Players." Each of the Star Players are printed on foil-board and are short-printed at the rate of 1:2/packs. In addition, there is a sixty-card (three per side) insert called "Man of the Match." MotMs are 1:5/packs.

There's also one other difference -- a big one if you ask me -- between European and American sports cards: cost. Each six-card packet (and that's what they call them over there, "packets") cost only 35p. That's about $0.65US.

Unfortunately, I opened all five packs packets and collated them without duly noting (as I usually do) what each individual pack packet had. So here's what I got in all five:

Base: 29 of 360 (8.06%)

short-set: 28 of 320 (8.75%)
Star Players: 1 of 40 (1:2) S. Bywater

Insert:
1 Man of the Match (1:5) C. Ronaldo

I received, perhaps, the worst possible Star Player and the best possible MotM insert.

First, the worst: Stephen Bywater started last season as the #1 goalkeeper for newly-promoted Derby County. Derby finished the 2007-08 season with a record of one win, eight draws, 29 losses and a goal differential of -69 -- the worst in the 16-season history of the EPL. Bywater was loaned out to Ipswich Town during the January transfer window, which in footy-speak is the equivalent of being sent down to Triple-A. "Star Player?" Ha!

On the other hand, Cristiano Ronaldo is the best player on the planet. There is no better card to pull out of a pack, errr..., packet of Match Attax than a Man of the Match of Cristiano Ronaldo dos Santos Aveiro.

CRISTIAN-JO RONALD-JO!!!

Feed the Yak and He Will Score

Today was the first real day of Premier League action over in England, so I've decided to rip one of the packs sent to me by our UK correspondent, John.

I chose this pack because it has a player from Everton, my favorite team, on the wrapper. They played today, but their 2-1 lead would not hold and they lost 3-2 to Blackburn. Will Mikel Arteta (the guy in the blue shirt at lower left) help produce a better result?

Let's tear in.

Top to Bottom:
Michael Carrick - Manchester United (Part of the Champions League winner last season, but not one of their major stars.)

Mehdi Nafti - Birmingham (Tunisian international.)

Gareth Bale - Tottenham

David Nugent Man of the Match Parallel - Portsmouth (Part of the surprise FA Cup-winning side.)

Fernando Torres - Liverpool (First bona-fide superstar in the pack! Fernando scored the wininng goal for Spain in Euro 2008 this summer, as well as scoring the winning goal for Liverpool today.)

Gary Speed - Bolton (Don't know too much about him, other than that he joined Sheffield United in the middle of last season. With a last name like that, the emmer-effer better be fast.)

Not a bad pack at all, despite no Toffees. I'll leave you with a look at the backs of the cards, which include nice logos.

Hawks v. Celtics Game 7 Basketball Card Extravaganzapalooza

I went to Target and bought a bunch of basketball packs to commemorate the Hawks taking the evil Celts to the brink in their playoff series. I'm gonna rip 'em all right now and post them all at once because when if my Birds falter tonight I'll never bother to write up these packs. I got three from Upper Deck and three from Topps to make it all even. I probably should have gotten one more pack in honor of game seven but there's a limit to how many basketball cards even I can stand. Whoever has more cards out of these packs, Hawks or Celts, will surely win the game tonight because all sporting contests in the world ultimately hinge on which packs a blogger purchases from a Target on Highway 41 in Acworth. rrrrrrrrrrip!

2007-2008 Fleer Basketball

78 Zach Randolph
74 David Lee
49 Dwight Howard
170 Rafer Alston
140 Elton Brand
160 Marcus Camby
191 Amare Stoudemire
86R-137 Wilson Chandler '86 Fleer retro

This pack was chock full of Knicks, but the '86 retro card makes up for it.

2007-2008 Fleer Hot Prospects Basketball

45 Shaquille O'Neal
7 Ray Allen NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
48 Brandon Roy
upperdeckstore.com code
NN-3 AL HORFORD Notable Newcomers
$2 off a Spanding basketball Target coupon

Ray Allen almost ruined the pack, but the Horford insert card makes not only this pack, but the resto f them as well. I guess it's technically tied even though Ray is still in his Sonics uniform. I got two coupons in this sucker too. While I don't need a basketball, I might actually use the Upper Deck code for once. There's a Phil Niekro trading card/car thingy on there that has caught my eye. Yeah, it's stupid, but I love the ol' knuckleballer.

2007-2008 SP Basketball

20 Michael Redd
AP-50 Dr. J
100 Josh Howard
87 Chauncey Billups
61 Kobe Bean

DAMN that Dr. J card is frickin' sweet! I wonder if there's a 'Nique?

2007-2008 Bowman Draft Picks and Stars Basketball

70 Andrea Bargnani
75 Andre Miller
11 Yao Ming Chrome
108 David Lee
45 Chris Paul

This pack sucked. If it says Rookies on the pack there should be rookies in the pack. I expect better from Bowman. A shame, because the cards look slick.

2007-2008 Topps Chrome Basketball

88 Ryan Gomes
85 Clyde Drexler
117 Thaddeus Young
101 Tracy McGrady

Ugliest set of the year in any sport. The Baseball chrome looked so good too. I only got this pack hoping for a refractor and was denied. Clyde the Glide is a pretty good consolation prize though.

2007-2008 Topps Trademark Moves Basketball

49 DOMINIQUE WILKINS !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
47 Magic Johnson
23 LeBron James
8 Richard Hamilton
29 Eddy Curry

Nique saves the day on the last pack! Take that ya Irish bastids! Three of the 5 cards are miscut though, LeBron and Rip have a little extra bit of a basketball on the bottom of their cards. Who cares, man. Hawks are gonna win and I got a card of Magic to boot. W00t!

Update: Apparently this was A Pack A Day's 500th post and I didn't even notice. Oh well. Time to write another 500.

2007-2008 Fleer Basketball Fat Pack

All right, I know everyone here hates basketball cards like they were a disease, but my Hawks just clinched their first playoff spot since the Clinton Administration and I'm celebrating with a Fleer Fat Pack. I like this set and it might be the last Fleer set ever (sob) so indulge me, ok? I'll give you a cool pack later tonight to make up for it. Joe Johnson is showing on the back, so I've got at least one Playoff-Bound Atlanta Hawk in the pack!

Top Pack:
16 Chris Bosh
6 Rasheed Wallace
95 Rajon Rondo
80 Quentin Richardson
65 Willie Green
35 Vince Carter
73 Ryan Hollins
43 Caron Butler
28 Luol Deng
12 LeBron James
93 Desmond Mason
63 Kyle Korver
116 Martell Webster
102 Darko Milicic
144 Cuttino Mobley
119 Shareef Abur-Rahim
149 Stephen Jackson
117 Sergio Rodriguez
109 Luke Ridnour
166 Shane Battier
103 Damon Stoudamire
194 Maurice Ager
164 JR Smith
134 Tyson Chandler
218 Aaron Brooks Rookie
61R-26 Joe Johnson '61 Retro card

This set makes me nostalgic. Loud colors, flimsy card stock, a badly designed back with only 5 years of stats... if half the cards were off center and badly cut, I'd think I was in the late 80's again. King James is by far the bast in this pack. I like to put together starting lineups out of basketball packs so we'll have LeBron at small forward, Chris Bosh at power forward, Rasheed Wallace at center (I almost went with Tyson Chandler, but Rasheed growled at me and I regained my senses) Vince Carter will be in the back court along with Rajon Rando at point who is used to dishing the ball off to superstar teammates on the Celtics. That lineup should win a couple of games. I thought I had gotten a bad quarterback for my rookie card, but it turns out he's a bench player for the Rockets. At least he's in the league. The 1961 Fleer retro card of Joe Johnson looks great, the original set is a classic. Since you'd get way more inserts and rookies by buying individual packs, the Fat Pack bonuses need to be this good.

Bottom Pack:
71 Jason Richardson
55 Ike Diogu
47 Etan Thomas
91 Michael Redd
61 Rodney Carney
31 Ben Wallace
5 Tayshaun Prince
66 Samuel Dalembert
36 Jason Collins
21 James Posey
29 Ben Gordon
88 Andrew Bogut
178 Deron Williams
148 Al Harrington
133 Hilton Armstrong
118 James Jones
131 Rashad McCants
145 Chris Kaman
192 Boris Diaw
199 Jerry Stackhouse
184 Brent Barry
154 Andrew Bynum
139 Morris Peterson
86R-150 Acie Law IV '86 Retro Rookie
209 Jermareo Davidson Rookie
61R-34 Shaquille O'Neal '61 Retro card

I tried putting together a starting five, but this pack is a little too guard heavy to create a functional team. I don't think anybody wants Jason Richardson to play power forward. I also just noticed that there is no personal info on the back of the cards like birthday, height, college, etc. How do you forget to put height on the back of a basketball card? It's like a pitcher's card without any throws left or right stat on the back. The Rookie is another bench player, this time for the Bobcats, but it's not a D-League scrub. I got a Hawk for the '86 Retro Rookie card, Acie Law IV. Acie is the Hawks' version of Scott Thorman. Just like Scott prompted the Braves to go get Mark Teixeira, Acie hastened the coming of the Mike Bibby era in Atlanta. I'm not sure why the card is numbered 150, unless Upper Deck is continuing the '86 retro set from last year's Fleer set. It wouldn't be the dumbest thing a card company has done I suppose. The Shaquille O'Neal card is easily the coolest out of the entire pack. The Miami Heat team colors look great on the '61 retro card even though Shaq is now a Sun.

This is some good stuff to celebrate the Hawks' exit from the lottery. Just in time to fork over our first rounder to the Suns for the Joe Johnson trade! Now I get to root on my Hawks as they try to maybe sneak one win at home before getting absolutely murdered by the Celtics. I'm a fan, but I'm not delusional.

2007-2008 O-Pee-Chee Hockey Three-fer

I've managed to stumble into writing the site's 250th post, so I'll give you three packs for your enjoyment to commemorate the event. We'll hit one thousand before you know it! Today I've got some 2007-2008 O-Pee-Chee hockey to rip. There are a couple reasons I bought this stuff. First, I've never actually been able to buy a pack of O-Pee-Chee in a retail store before. This used to be Canadian only before Upper Deck bought them out and the last time I was in Canada I was 5. Secondly, the NHL All-Star Game and Fan Fest is in Atlanta this year. This includes a trading card show sponsored by Upper Deck, which of course means wrapper redemptions. Upper Deck is offering a bunch of Thrasher cards as rewards for opening wax at the show, but I can't open wax if there's nothing I want to buy. Any money I spend there is money I don't have to buy 2008 Topps and Heritage baseball, so I really, really don't want to waste a lot of cash on junk hockey wax I don't even collect just to get a couple of Thrashers promos. Pack prices tend to be a tad inflated at these things too, which doesn't help. That's where O-Pee-Chee comes in. OPC is the quintessential Hockey card (well, other than maybe Parkhurst) plus the stuff is cheap. You can get a handful of retail packs to rip for under ten bucks which is always nice. If O-Pee-Chee is worth it, I'll have something to rip while I'm there to get the goodies. Plus Todd McFarlane will be there hawking his Action Figures and signing autos, and it would be awesome if I could get my copy of Spawn #10 with the Cerebus crossover signed. Let's see how this stuff looks.

Pack 1:
91 Andrew Ladd
356 Joffrey Lupul
233 Lubomir Visnovsky
253 Chris Higgins
589 Torrey Mitchell Marquee Rookies
260 Cristobal Huet

Well the stuff certainly looks great. The gold and black borders with the subtle cross hatching looks really slick, plus any hockey set with the team logo prominently displayed is a good one. The cards are printed on old-school gray cardboard too, which is fantastic. It's a pretty large set so pretty much every player who spent significant time with their team should be in the checklist. Not bad at all so far. I'm not crazy about the backs though, the base cards are a tad minimalist for my tastes and the Rookie card is printed in full color on the back which looks terrible. You can't tell from the scan, but the colored ink causes a glare on the back that makes it really hard to read. No foil, which is refreshing. The most disturbing thing about this set is that it has a 600 card checklist with short printed rookies and Upper Deck could only manage to squeeze 6 cards per pack. Why? Is gray cardboard that freaking expensive nowadays? Plus most packs have a rookie or insert in them so that's 5 base cards per pack. So now I'm looking at three boxes minimum with perfect collation for even a shot at a base set. Ugh. It's a nice set though, so let's check out the second pack.

Pack 2:
162 Mike Ribeiro
62 Andrew Peters
322 Peter Prucha
274 Vernon Fiddler
CL24 Pittsburgh Penguins Checklist
436 Vaclav Prospal

I have to admit that out of the packs I got, the Penguins checklist is my favorite pull. I love the old cartoony penguin logo. The checklist also give a little more info about the breakdown of the set. Penguin cards are numbered 383-399, so UD grouped all the players by team, which is nice for team collectors. There are 17 Penguin cards in the checklist, so it looks like most teams will have a good number of players. They didn't list any rookie cards on the checklist, which is strange. You'd think there'd be at least one Penguin in the 100 card rookie set, and a team checklist is useless if you don't have all the cards on it. Nice stuff, but I'm still not sold. At the bare minimum though this pack break has made me want to check for a Thrashers team set online.

Pack three:
222 Dan Cloutier
362 Kimmo Timonen
132 Ryan Smyth
264 Alexander Perezhogin
SH2 Daniel Alfresson Season Highlights
35 Phil Kessel

Upper Deck got one thing right with this set, the inserts are shiny. Real shiny. Refractor-like shiny. Alfredsson's not a bad pull either, a Buffalo fan would soil themselves if they pulled this card. I'll say one thing for this set, if I collect any hockey set this year, it will be this one. Problem is, I'm still extremely bitter over the cancellation of the season a couple of years before. Dany Heatley was my absolute favorite hockey player ever, and I got to watch his Thrashers career end with assclown Gary Bettman announcing that the season had to be canceled because billionaire owners just couldn't work out with the millionaire players how they should divvy up the money pie. A money pie that looks more like an overcooked Hostess fried pie now thanks to their short sightedness. Oh well. Even though I'm still angry at the NHL, this will be my only chance to go to a Hockey Fanfest show and I'll probably end up checking it out anyway. The chance to stalk Todd McFarlane so I can ask if he'll show me his balls is too big a temptation to pass up. I'm still not sure if I'll be ripping any wax there though since Upper Deck decided to be stingy with the cards per pack. Maybe I can sneak a couple of Thrashers promos without anyone seeing. Everybody is going to want Sidney Crosby anyway.

2007-2008 Stadium Club Basketball

Here's that really good pack of Stadium Club basketball I promised you a while back. No one commented on the Grandmama commercial that I posted last time so I almost didn't post this fine pack. I decided to do it anyway, but I'm posting it on the weekend so no one will see it. That'll teach you to disrespect Grandmama. There ain't but five cards, so I'll do them one at a time.

62 Joe Johnson
The same guy who caused the Hawks' entire management structure to implode is the same one who will likely lead them to the playoffs. Or at least one game out of the playoffs, which is pretty damn good for the Hawks.


92 Isiah Thomas
He's worthless as a coach, general manager and executive, but damn could Zeke ball.


133 Nick Fazekas X-Fractor.
My eyes! Teh shiny! I go blind now! It's a shame I lost my sight to a second round pick who played two games for the Mavs before getting shipped off to the D-League. An auto's an auto though, even if it's the minimalist N F variety. You can barely see it, but there's a ghostly Nick peering out at you on the right side of the card. This isn't due to the scan, it's actually barely visible on the card too.


100 Kenny Smith
Kenny played for the Hawks for about fifteen minutes and he's not terrible on TNT so I like him.


87 Wilt Chamberlain
Best card in the set, let alone this pack. Stilt in the Sixers uni facing off against Russell in the Garden. Classic.


An auto, a player I root for and three old school players in one pack. Freakin' sweet. You guys may not appreciate classic commercials but you have to appreciate Russell and Wilt.

2007-2008 Stadium Club Basketball

This is a travel day for the World Series. TriStar goes home after taking one out of two on Bowman's field. Meanwhile, remember this post about 2006-2007 Full Court Basketball? Remember when I said this?

Why didn't Topps just call it Stadium Club? Hell if they called it Stadium Club, I might have bought a Blaster in a fit of nostalgia

Well, um, ahem. Here's the first pack. The Series continues tomorrow, I'll post the best pack from this box on the next World Series travel break.

81 Larry Johnson
61 Chauncey Billups
77 Andrea Bargnani
21 Tim Duncan
25 Richard Jefferson

All right, now this is the stuff. I did not expect to see Grandmama as the first card in the pack however. The last time I was really into basketball he was still in the league so it's appropriate he should be the first card. I was a big fan back in the early 90's, I even had a loud teal and purple Charlotte Hornets windbreaker that I actually wore in public. I wanted nostalgia and I sure got it! The fronts of the cards are great, they have the classic Stadium Club photography, the design at the bottom is good and doesn't take up too much space and Topps was able to get their foil fix without making the name unreadable. Plus it's got that great old-school logo on there. The backs of the cards are a little wordy though, two-thirds of the back are filled with career highlights and the stats get short shrift. Of course this is 2008, not 1993 and I found the stats for every player in this pack plus more with about two minutes work. It's still a pretty nice set with a good checklist. The bad news is the rookies are all short printed in the retail version, dropping at 1 in 13 packs. The good news is that they are all chrome cards, so if you're lucky enough to pull one it's a pretty sweet looking card. I probably won't buy another blaster, but I might complete the base set if some of the cards pop up in the local shop's common box. In the meantime, I'll sort through these cards while I watch one of the greatest commercials ever:

2007-2008 Upper Deck Basketball First Edition

We now bring you the continuing story of Cardboard Junkie is a Lucky Bastard. I wanted to get a pack of First Edition Basketball for a while since I really liked the baseball and football versions. I never did get around to actually buying a pack though, even though I had every opportunity. The one time I actually picked one up it fell out of the shopping cart somewhere around the cereal aisle. So yesterday I was at Target looking for last minute presents. My wife didn't get everything we needed and I had to have the rest of them for a party this weekend. I looked around and found bupkis, not a dang thing I was looking for was there. That meant I was going to have to go down the street and go to The Avenue. Anyone not familiar with The Avenue, think a high class strip mall filled with overpriced yuppie stores like Pottery Barn, Abercrombie & Fitch and Williams-Sonoma. Plus it's the Holiday season so it's packed with mindless consumer drones taking up all the good parking spaces. I hate The Avenue. I went to the card rack hoping to find a pack of Bowman Draft to steel my nerves for the journey into Shopping Hell. Nope, not a single pack. Hey, there's First Edition, I could get that, it's only a buck.

32 Sarunas Jasikevicius
60 Nene
67 Craig Smith
50 Shawn Marion
157 Antoine Walker
126 Amir Johnson
117 Thabo Sefolosha
142 Maurice Williams
229 Gold Carl Landry Star Rookies
203 Al Horford Star Rookies

I have to admit, any pack with Sarunas Jasikevicius and Thabo Sefolosha is by definition full of awesome. Nene's another gem, what exactly has he done to warrant being a one-namer? I got a Gold rookie and The Matrix so that's good at least. None of that matters because I got the one card I really wanted out of the first and only pack of this stuff I'll buy. Al "Not a Bust" Horford. Al is kicking ass so far in his rookie season, all while playing out of position at Center because Billy Knight has no idea how to build an NBA roster. I would have bought this card outright anyway and here I go pulling out of a pack. Between this and pulling an auto out of a Topps Blaster, I'm on a roll. Time for me to go to Vegas.

2007-2008 Upper Deck Artifacts Hockey

So the Thrashers start the season at 2-8 and they fire their coach. I figure hey, they suck, I can safely ignore them. I check the standings and they are somehow at .500 for the season. What the hell? Let's have some consistency, people. I really shouldn't have bothered with this pack, I didn't really want to mess with hockey cards this year. However, I've already opened a pack of baseball Artifacts (good), football Artifacts (bad) and basketball Artifacts (really good) so what the heck, let's go for the complete set. I'm interested to see what they look like anyway since the baseball and hoops sets had a dirt motif going on and ice and dirt don't really mix well. Besides, Bobby Orr is on the wrapper.

79 Alex Tanguay
16 Evgeni Malkin
82 Paul Stastny
74 Pavol Demitra
153 Jaroslav Halak Rookie #493/999

No dirty cards for Hockey. Upper Deck used an ice blue marble theme instead. These cards look really nice, but I just don't know who any of these people are. That probably means I no longer know a damn thing about hockey because according to the stats on the back, Malkin and Stastny scored 85 points and 78 points respectively last year. Tanguay also scored 80 points and Demitra (who rings a bell now that I think about it) is also a big goal scorer. It's ok if I don't know who the rookie is, I don't know who most of the baseball rookies are either and I actually follow that sport.

Since I have nothing to say about the players to pad out this post, I shall instead compare the team uniforms. The Canadians uni is classic, yet boring. I've never been a big fan of the CH logo. The Avs have a snazzy uniform but I always played the Red Wings in EA Hockey '94 so I feel compelled to hate them. The Penguins sweater kicks ass. I'm glad they went back to the old school cartoony penguin. I really like the Flames sweater with the red, yellow and black, but that flaming evil horse face logo sucks. The Wild uniform is disgusting, it looks like a Christmas nightmare. Red and Green just don't work for sports uniforms. Ask the New Jersey Devils, they changed their colors to red and black and immediately won a bunch of Stanley Cups. I don't think that will work for the Wild though, no matter what they do they'll still have the same name as the worst Disney flick ever. That movie managed to make Eddie Izzard unfunny, and I didn't think that was even possible. Ok, I'm completely off topic now.

To sum up: 2007 Upper Deck Artifacts baseball is good, football sucks, basketball is really good and hockey is also really good unless you don't follow hockey and then it sucks even if you pull a rookie goalie. Remember this, because there will be a quiz.

2007-2008 Fleer Ultra Basketball

Back when I rabidly collected basketball cards, I always preferred Fleer over Ultra. I have lots of Fleer sets, but other than Shaq's rookie year, not much Ultra. Fleer doesn't come out till late January though and I felt like opening some hoops cards since the Hawks hit .500 for the first time in forever with a win over Orlando. Of course as soon as I get the pack home they drop a game to Toronto. Oh well, maybe I'll get a blank back gimmick card to help ease my pain.

88 Pau Gasol
60 Kelenna Azubuike
46 Eduardo Najera
US-22 Drew Gooden Ultra Stars jersey
154 LaMarcus Aldridge
RS-19 Javaris Crittenton

Well that was cool... No blank backs but I got a Cavs jersey swatch. Too bad it's the wrong player. It looks pretty nice for an all-gold card with gold foil. I did pretty well with the base cards too, Gasol and Aldridge are good players. I do have to admit that this is the very first time I have ever heard of Mr. Azubuike. He played for Kentucky, so you'd think I would remember him from an SEC game, but I don't. He's got on a sweet retro "The City" Golden State uni though. I love 70's hoops unis. The pack finishes up with a card of Georgia Tech point guard Javaris Crittenton. He's got his college uniform on instead of a Lakers one which is fine with me. It never fails, I always end up pulling an awesome pack every time I buy one to open here from a set I have no interest in collecting. This blog is going to ruin me yet... Then again what else is there to bust until 2008 Topps comes out?