Box Break: 2011-12 Panini Hoops

Panini Hoops has 8 cards per pack, 36 packs per hobby box. Each box typically contains two autographed cards per box, a glossy parallel card or two, an Artist’s proof parallel card or two, and a myriad of insert cards. Here is what Hoops Hobby pulled.

Artist’s Proof (1): Tayshaun Prince
Glossy (2): Patrick Patterson, Daniel Gibson

A Night to Remember (4): Magic Johnson, John Stockton, Dwyane Wade, Jason Terry
Action Photos (3): Kevin Love, Amare Stoudemire, Stephen Curry

Courtside (3): Kevin Durant, Dwyane Wade, Paul Pierce
Slam Dunk Champions (3): Kenny ‘Sky’ Walker, Josh Smith, Blake Griffin

Hall of Fame Heroes (4): Nate Thurmond, John Havlicek, David Robinson, Dolph Schayes

Hoop Dreams (1): James Harden

Autographs (2): Hasheem Thabeet, Randy Foye

Impressions:

For a sub-$50 box, Hoops delivers as advertised, providing a bunch of inserts and parallels and the two autos per box, with a shot at a nice one (Jeremy Lin, Kobe Bryant, Blake Griffin, etc…)

Some of these insert sets I like and may even try to complete myself. I find I enjoy the simple set designs like ‘Hoop Dreams’ and ‘Courtside’. The Slam Dunk set and ‘A Night to Remember’ have too much going on in one card.

The autographs are underwhelming, with this box providing Hasheem Thabeet (not afraid to go ahead and label Hasheem a big bust), and bench player Randy Foye. It’s a shame these autographs aren’t on-card, but again, for a sub-$50 product, can’t complain.

Hoops appeals to the crowd that likes opening a ton of cards, pulling a ton of inserts, and loves pulling multiple cards of their favorite players. Many of the stars have multiple base cards in this release. The base cards could be used for TTM autograph collectors and in-person autographs. While the value is good for the price, the potential for this release is so high, though, and it comes as a slight disappointment to me just because of some of the insert sets being underwhelming in design. I would like to see future releases such as these modeled after the 2010-11 Donruss product, which had a similar starting price point and received more praise from collectors.