Random Blaster Box- Upper Deck Basketball

Today is a double dose of Upper Deck Basketball. I picked up a couple of blasters, the first is from the 2008-09 Upper Deck basketball release and the second blaster is from the 2009-10 Upper Deck Basketball release, and I am going to break down my pulls.

I have always been a fan of the Upper Deck base basketball sets for one reason, the images. Upper Deck has a way of selecting some great images to use on the cards and this really brings the collector in to the game. You never really pulled anything "super" from these products but they normally sold more to set collectors.

Blaster #1- 2008-09 Upper Deck Basketball

I pulled a couple of UD Legends (Dr J & Karl Malone) and 1 rookie, Deron Washington, a Ray Allen All-Star Class card along with a Rodman Bulls Dynasty card and 2 Celtics Dynasty cards.


Agent Zero hyping up the crowd and a close up of Vince Carter flying in for a reverse layup. These are just a couple of cards that caught my eye but really you would be hard pressed to find a bad image used.


I realized something was odd when I kept pulling Starquest cards considering that they are 1 per box in the Hobby Boxes. Turned out I grabbed a "Hot Box" and I actually pulled some cool cards. The "big" Starquest hits are the 4 I posted here: Blue Super Rare Kobe Bryant, Purple Rare Kevin Durant, Blue Super Rare Dr J. and a Gold Un-Common LeBron. I pulled 6 other Starquests, 5 Silver Commons and 1 Gold Un-Common. They were Commons- Baron Davis, Tim Duncan, Rudy Gay, Magic Johnson and Tracy McGrady. The Gold Un-Common was another Baron Davis.



The 1 per box relic was a Caron Butler Washington Wizards jersey swatch, I didn't notice at first until I looked at the scan but there is white stitching in the upper left corner of the swatch.




Blaster #2- 2009-10 upper Deck Basketball

On to one Upper Decks final basketball products and once again UD used some excellent images for the cards. Just look at the Bryant and Paul cards, you can see the detail and the emotion on the players face. This is what collectors want to see when they rip a pack.






In the 2009-10 UD NBA release you got 1 rookie per pack so the chance to pull some decent players is pretty good. I would have to say the Brandon Jennings and James Harden cards are probably the best rookies that I pulled and I say that having grown up a University of Arizona fan who despises any player who comes out of Tempe wearing the Maroon and Gold colors but I guess I can give Harden a pass for now considering he plays with Kevin Durant, one of my favorite players.




I have had some good luck recently with blaster boxes (hopefully I don't jinx myself). I am not a collector that is all about pulling the money card, I would much rather pull a cool looking card, favorite players, etc over pulling that one card that will pay for the box.

This card fits in to my terms of cards worth pulling. I had no idea that there was a 3D Stars insert, I honestly have never seen one and at 1:160 the odds are pretty tough of actually pulling one. These cards do not sell for much with most selling for only a few dollars each and the 3 big hits are Michael Jordan/Kobe Bryant, Michael Jordan/LeBron James or the Kobe Bryant/LeBron James cards. I was fortunate enough to pull the Kevin Durant/Russell Westbrook card.

The cards are not actually 3D, they are lenticular and when you angle the card one way you see Durant and angle the other way and you see Westbrook. They remind me of those cards we used to pull of off Slurpee cups in the 80s.




Not long ago I pulled a Carmelo Anthony/Shawn Marion Dual Game Materials and this box surprises me with 2 of the best (recent) NBA Centers to ever play the game. Being a Phoenix Suns fan I am not big on Robinson or Olajuwon, but this is definitely not a card I will be tossing away.

Occasionally Clearance Pays Off

I grabbed a blaster box of 2009-10 Upper Deck Basketball the other night, mainly because it was on clearance and it included one jersey card. I figured it would give me some packs to rip and there is always a chance of pulling something decent.

I opened the box and noticed one of the packs was obviously much thicker then the other 9 packs so I tossed it aside planning on opening it up last. I began ripping packs and while I would not say that the box was anything special I was satisfied with what I pulled. In all there was a nice selection of base cards and no duplicates, 12 Rookie Cards (including Blake Griffin and Chase Budinger), 2 Immortals, 2 Masterpieces (Courtney Lee & J.J. Hickson) and a handful of other inserts. When I hit pack #8 I pulled a Kareem Abdul-Jabbar/Jerry West Dual Game Materials jersey card. I was surprised because the super thick pack was still sitting to the side and my hopes went up at that point. I am not a Lakers fan, but I will never complain pulling relics of these two guys.

When I opened final thick pack there were 9 cards instead of the usual 8. There were 4 cards on each side and a super thick card between them. I ended up pulling a 2007-08 UD Chronology “The LeBrons” Blue Border card. The card is pretty thick too, roughly the thickness of 2 jersey cards together.

I have only been able to find a couple of these cards on eBay, one sold for $31 the other day and one is at $5 with a little over a day left, but the most humorous auction I came across was the guy claiming that the card is so rare and is selling it for a $800 BIN price. I think he should stick to selling electronics and not cards.