2008-09 Topps Basketball Breakdown

The Topps product has always been a clean design and usually some nice photos. The 2008-09 Topps Basketball set contains white borders, clean action shots and foil names. The backs have the standard info; a short player bio and complete career stats (a nice addition in today’s world of minimal stats and poorly designed backs). There are a couple of parallels this year; a Gold Parallel limited to 2008 and an Orange Parallel limited to 1199. The set also includes the ‘58-‘59 Variations which replicate the Topps 1958-59 Basketball set.

On to the cards:

3- Allen Iverson Pre-Pistons trade
AI caught Louis Williams sitting flat-footed and is ready to blow by him

34- Paul Pierce
Pierce gliding in for a well-earned 2 points

OJ Mayo Orange Parallel, definitely one of the better cards that I pulled from the boxes

Derrick Rose 58-59 Variations

Overall I was quite pleased with the set. There are a couple of things that I did not like regarding the photos that were used on some of the cards. Many of the images in the retired subset were blurred or just poor poses. You have a great shot of Magic ready to make a no-look pass then a couple of cards later you looking at a blurred out George Gervin. The photos used in the 58-59 Variants were also blurred. I realize this was probably a tip of the hat to the original set, but honestly the card layout replicating the original set is honor enough, no need to travel back in time and use blurred photos too. Finally, the images for the rookies were mostly from Summer League play so they were not in official uniforms. But, being an early season release I guess this is expected.

My biggest complaint overall was the number of duplicates. Two blaster boxes, ten packs each box with 8 cards per box= 180 total cards. I ended up with 41 duplicates between the two boxes. With a 220-card base set, I only completed 46.8% of the set (102 base cards, 41 duplicates and 37 inserts, variations and parallels).