Wait...where are all the Blazers?

The title of this entry serves two purposes. For one, Portland has been bitten by the injury bug once again. This time it took Jerryd Bayless. Fortunately, it doesn't look too serious. Secondly, I actually have fifteen cards to show this time and not one is a Blazer. And the only one with remote ties to the team is Jermaine O'Neal.

Anyway, with that out of the way, here we go. Yesterday, I had a mailday in from a member on SportsCardForum. It went very smoothly and I'd like to thank the member for the deal. These cards I paid $6 for and they came from Hong Kong. Thanks for the great deal!

First are eight random inserts from this year's Panini Prestige.

Here are my thoughts on the insert designs:

Hardcourt Heroes: Not too bad, they have a nice classy look to them.

Franchise Favorites: Probably my favorite insert set of the ones I got. It reminds me of a movie trailer. The team logo is good, but it is in sort of an awkward place on the card.

Stars of the NBA: Mediocre. It looks a little plain for my taste.

Inside the Numbers: Excellent concept, but it wasn't executed well in my opinion. To have an insert set all about the jersey number, the number should be displayed proudly. This has a tiny box in the center that has the number outlined in white. Make it more exciting, Panini! Maybe even number them to the jersey number to make it more collectible.

True Colors: Pretty nice, but I would need to see some other teams represented to see how the color scheme changes.

Super Sophs: Not terrible, but again, a little plain.

Stat Stars: My least favorite of the bunch. It has nothing stat-related on the front of the card--merely a little blurb on the back (and no actual statistic table).

The lot came with these six autos, which is what I was mainly interested in:

I thought it was a very good price for those six. The Maggette is a rookie year auto, the Szczerbiak is /100, which I wasn't aware of, and the Garcia has a very very nice design. There is a little smudge at the end of his auto, though. 5/6 are on card. Thanks!

Lastly, my dad took me to the local card shop and I got a few things. Donruss Threads 09/10 Looked appealing, but they were out. I took two of the 09 Donruss Elite EE for around $10 and got this:

If you can't see, it's Travis Banwart. It's a nice one but apparently he isn't too good. Oh well.

I also grabbed these:

That Melo is #13/25. Looks pretty cool, huh? Check this out.

Thanks for reading!