Then and Now: Fleer Team Leaders

Due to the perfect storm of condition sensitivity and limited availability, these cards were never popular until about a year after their release. Surprisingly their values remain strong and frequently sell for high book value and sometimes much more (especially for the tougher-to-find "common" players).

2009-2010 Card Releases

No Topps.
No Upper Deck.
Next season, the only NBA cards will come from Panini. Known more for those sticker collector books (that I now wish I never tried to complete) in the late 80's and early 90's, the Italian company looks like it's going to use next year's exclusive NBA license agreement to get their foot in the door of the United States trading card market. Some good news is that it's rumored to be working with the Donruss company. I wasn't excited about the news, but I like what Donruss had done lately, especially with their football and Americana releases. But what will the market be like with no competition in the basketball market?

This Week's Best: Week 1

1993-94 Ultra Jam City
An example of the popular foil treatment of the mid-90's insert sets that I would like to see make a comeback. But this set was available only in retail jumbo packs at a rate of 1 in every 35 packs. The retail packs were tough to find to begin with and you only got one of these per box (a disappointment if you pull a Minor or Coleman). Nine cards in the set with Shaquille O'Neal (pictured), Derrick Coleman, David Robinson, Harold Miner, Shawn Kemp, Clyde Drexler, Charles Barkley, Patrick Ewing, and Dominique Wilkins. Great design for a foil treatment, but huge condition problems with chipping along the edges. I don't remember how many packs I bought trying to just complete this small set and ended up buying a set at a show. I guess there's only one BGS 9 Mint O'Neal out there with no 9.5.