Hoops Hobby

It’s tough to see the Pacers on the sidelines for the entire playoffs, even with the expectation that they’ll be back next season ready to make a deep run. While entertaining, even these Finals made me think about what could have been with a healthy Haliburton.

Around playoff time, though, social media for the Pacers and others tend to re-share great moments in the team’s history. Legends of the Ball, if you will. We get to re-live Reggie Miller’s shot against Jordan in the 1998 ECF and triumphs against the Knicks, Rik Smits winning from the free throw line against the Orlando Magic, and of course Haliburton’s magical run through the playoffs last season. And this year’s NBA playoffs coincide with me adding a good many cards of Reggie, Haliburton and Pascal Siakam.

For Reggie, it’s been a variety of cards spanning from the mid-90s to the Panini era from 2017-19, but I’ll keep today’s post to the Panini and beyond era. I used to stay away from those Panini era cards, but I had a realization lately that Reggie may never have new cards made again, so let’s just enjoy the ones he’s got, even outside of those playing days cards.

For Haliburton and Siakam, most all of my pickups are inserts. I’m focusing on inserts, and in particularly ones that are visually appealing to me, because it’s a fairly large pool of cards to pull from these days. It’s a part of collecting Reggie Miller that frustrates me, him not appearing in many insert sets during the 90s and 2000s. So with Haliburton I don’t have that problem and I’m trying to take advantage of it as a way to enjoy my collection, and this era of Pacers basketball, more. Siakam is popping up a lot in the 2025-26 group of cards, too. I’m about as active in picking up new cards (none particularly expensive, luckily) as I have been in my time in collecting basketball cards.

The maildays feel good. Adding to my binders feels good. Collecting what I like and sharing with my hobby friends feels good. Picking up old cards, old-ish cards, and new cards feels good. Buying cards from hobby friends feels good. Sending cards to hobby friends feels good. Browsing TCDB and keeping track of my collection feels good. If you’re feeling stressed out with the rising costs of collecting, I encourage you to try one or more of those activities, and don’t feel like you have to spend much, and don’t feel like you have to be in a rush.

Now onto sharing the cards.

Like I mentioned, Spicy P appears in a good many insert sets in Topps products from 2025-26. Not as many as Haliburton, but enough to start to build out a binder page.

The Hoopnotic insert set from 2025-26 Hoops is one of the many ‘case hit’ sets these days, and as far as case hits go, Siakam falls in the lower range of prices, much to my relief. Hoopnotic reminds me of the Hoops High Voltage insert set from the late 90s. I’ve always wanted a Tim Duncan from that classic set, but I’ll gladly take this Siakam. I absolutely love the City Edition jerseys, both home and away, from the 2024-25 season, and I just really enjoy seeing it on cards.

The Net 2 Net insert shows up in retail packs and is does not have near as tough pack odds as the Hoopnotic, but the Light Burst effect really makes for a great looking card in hand. I opened two blasters of this product, and a Kyrie was the highlight of my first retail box. Not a big hit by any means, but the inserts from this product are fun.

The Checkmate inserts make me think of some of the ‘extreme’ insert sets of the 90s. I don’t know of any chess related sets necessarily, but the set that does come to mind is 1996-97 Ultra Board Game. The background of these cards looks like a checker board.

When I saw the Checkmate set I was thrilled to see that not 1, but 2 Pacers are on the checklist. I’m still waiting to grab the Haliburton at a lower price than what most are going for as of now.

Dunk-umentory reminds me of a movie themed insert set from 2009-10 Upper Deck called Now Appearing, another set I’ve featured here on the blog in the past. This Siakam gives movie poster vibes, complete with the movie rating in the bottom right, an All Ages Permitted recommendation. Again, it’s nice to have a lower end set where the default is insert sets with a nice shine.

Moving on to Haliburton, while the Topps inserts are popping up fast and furious, it also is a good time to look back on some of the recent Panini era inserts that I really wasn’t paying too much attention to at time of release. I was mostly ignoring ultra-modern cards because of my overall disgust with the state of modern basketball cards. Exclusive licenses, rising prices of boxes and packs to absurd degrees, etc… But as I knew I would, I am looking back at some of those products and picking out the cards I enjoy.

This 2023-24 Mosaic Bank Shot Mosaic Prizm reminds me of 2008-09 Topps Treasury, and that’s why it caught my eye. My approach for picking up these inserts is that obviously I would only grab cards that appeal to me visually. I’m not picking these up to complete any kind of checklist. But ideally the cards would tie back in some way to cards I collected in the past. That’s not always going to be the case, but it’s true for this one. The Rip cards in particular from that set are what look closest design wise, but in my personal collection I would put a Danny Granger Silver refractor side by side with the Haliburton to create that past & present effect.

A couple more Haliburton late Panini era inserts to add to the binder here, both from 2023-24. Genies from Panini Phoenix is one I hadn’t noticed until recently and one I can think of anything similar for from the past, theme-wise. Because of the sky background, it gives me a 1998-99 Fleer Tradition Timeless Memories vibe. This Genies card has a nice shine.

And the Hoops Hipnotized goes back to 1996-97 Hoops, where Reggie actually has a card that I’ve owned for close to 30 years. The 1996-97 set has a kind of swirl effect on both the front and back of the card that distorts the image. The scan doesn’t do the new Hoops version justice, and to me, the 1996-97 Reggie is a classic card in my collection, though not rare at all with the insert being inserted at 1:5 packs.

I’ve added a few 2025-26 Haliburton inserts as well. In the new Hoops products, the Pixel parallels of some of the more common insert sets stood out to me, they make me Pay Attention, if you will. It’s a way to grab inserts with some tougher pack odds while not paying too much. The colors on the Pay Attention look really nice with Pacers colors. And Bounce House to me has the look of a case hit without being one. I just love the City Edition uniforms. They are a signature look that will always remind me of this era of Pacers basketball.

The last Haliburton is a pickup from my LCS. It’s rare to find a PC card like this in a showcase at a card store, but that’s exactly what happened. I made the trip looking for blasters of the newly released Topps Signature Class basketball, which the store had plenty of in stock. But I took a quick look at the cards under glass up front, and I paused at this Pulse Haliburton insert from 2025-26 Finest. It’s labeled as a case hit, but for me it comes down to price and if I like the design. These inserts are beautiful in hand. I know I say this regularly here but it’s hard to appreciate the look of this set without moving the card around under light. It’s another card that features Haliburton in the City Edition jersey, and it has that vortex effect on the card that is extra prevalent under the light. The owner at my LCS gave me a fair price, and that along with opening some packs made for a great trip. This Pulse insert is the centerpiece of my binder page so far for 2025-26 Haliburton cards.

I’ve owned the base card for Reggie from 2018-19 Hoops for years, which I’m sure I picked up via trade on TCDB. I’ve never made it a priority to grab any of the parallels, though. These are two of the more common, but the teal explosion is a parallel I’ve seen before when opening retail packs, looks nice, and wasn’t expensive.

The Yellow flood just goes with Pacers cards. Regardless of era, this is a nice looking Reggie Miller card. The Yellow Flood parallels came from dollar store packs, packs with less cards than a normal retail pack. You’d have to open a lot of dollar store packs to pull any particular player. Still on the inexpensive side, though.

I’m not chasing a rainbow for Reggie here, but I will pick up Reggie parallels when they are reasonably priced, now regardless of era.

Legends of the Ball runs in Panini Hoops from the 2017-18 season through 2021-22. I appreciate the continuity there. The 2019-20 iteration, like this Reggie, is a hobby insert with no parallels. I get tired sometimes of trying to find a parallel of an insert set when the ‘base insert’ is lackluster, but adding a foil, a holo, or color effect makes it worth owning. Please just make one nice looking insert that requires no or minimal parallel versions.

Again, this is a card I stayed away from until I had a mindset shift that I needed to own some of these Panini era Reggie cards.

I tend to jump around in my focus between Pacers team sets, Pacers autographs, rookie year cards, and as highlighted in this post, more recent Pacers cards. It helps keep things fresh and exciting. While this sounds broad, the pickups are still intentional in that collecting lane.

The next handful of seasons will determine where Haliburton and Siakam fall in the rankings of all-time Pacers. I know one thing, they both, along with Reggie, are Legends of the Ball.