Hoops Hobby

It’s rare to scroll through hobby twitter these days and not come across cards being posted for sale. While I’m always in buying mode if I see the right card, it’s relatively rare for me to jump into a stack sale. However, certain sellers cater to my collecting interests more than others, and I did grab a handful of cards recently. Most of these were Spurs cards and one of my favorite Virginia Tech Hokies, Nickeil Alexander-Walker.

First, young Spurs talent, starting with an Optic rookie of now All-Star Dejounte Murray. With base rookie prices coming back down to a reasonable level I felt like I could add a few of these cards to my collection. I prefer Optic to Prizm, in general, and it holds true with these as well. While I didn’t actually pick this up in a twitter stack sale, it was a one-off ebay purchase and I’m going to include it as part of my overall ‘stack’.

Vassell’s Prizm rookie actually scanned better than I thought it would. Happy to grab one of the top base rookies of Vassell, who’s sure to benefit from some of the trade deadline moves as minutes should open up even more with Thad Young and Derrick White traded.

With the trade deadline in the NBA upon us, and especially with one of my favorite players getting traded a few days ago, I realized one nice thing about collecting retired players. They can’t be traded! I don’t have to worry about seeing Tim Duncan going to a contender to chase a ring. I don’t have to worry about Tony Parker being traded for a younger player or picks. The Crusade card is the Blue version from 2013-14, unnumbered. It’s a design I’ve been eying for awhile and I’m happy to add a Duncan to my collection. Honestly this is the jewel of my stack haul.

The second Duncan is a Big Bang Die-Cut insert from 2013-14 Pinnacle numbered out of 99. I opened a box of this set several years ago and don’t remember opening any Die-Cut cards, or any numbered cards, so they have to be fairly rare. Die-Cuts are honestly a rarity in modern cards in general. The Big Bang set features NBA big men and Duncan is definitely the guy to pull out of this set. Both Gasols are in this set as well as Dwight Howard, but honestly this isn’t the most exciting insert set checklist. The Big Bang and the Crusade Duncans are number 433 and 434 in my collection.

Can’t say I was expecting one of my favorite players to be traded twice over the course of a few days, but that’s exactly what happened with Nickeil Alexander-Walker. I think he ultimately ended up in a better situation with the second trade to the Jazz. He’ll get to experience a winning culture and contribute in some meaningful playoff games, I would think. I’m a fan of the Illusions design from 2019-20, even more than the most recent Illusions release, I think.

I’ll finish this post up with a NAW rookie from 2019-20 Clearly Donruss. It’s hard to hold one of these acetate cards in your hand and not like it. This one is a bit off-center but since it’s going in my collection, I don’t mind much.

Thanks to @dmntakeover and @BMSHoops on twitter for most of these cards. Their stack sales are two of the best out there!

Have you participated in a stack sale? What’s your favorite card you’ve claimed and what makes it your favorite? Did you get a good price, did it hit a special place on your want list?