2008 Topps Treasury Basketball

This pack has been sitting in my "to post" pile for quite a while. Today seems to be a good day to share it. My football team didn't have a good day, but I'm not too upset because I didn't watch it. I'm far too smart and have lived far too long to get sucked into watching any game taking place in the Metrodome. While the Pack's record over the last few years has been good there, I was waiting for the law of averages to come into play. Plus, any money saved by not having to buy blood pressure medication in my more susceptible years can go towards more packs of cards.
On a more pleasant note, my Bucks, with a 3-4 record, are wildly surpassing local expectations. That's right, wildly surpassing. I hope this demonstrates how low the expectations were indeed.

Let's tear in.

Top to Bottom:
19 Deron Williams (I don't really follow pro basketball, so I have no idea who this is. It says he played at Ilinois, but I still don't have a clue. I guess I should start paying attention to basketball games other than those played during the month of March that are gambled on by everyone from Supreme Court justices to retired children's librarians to dominatrices.)

75 Richard Jefferson (I do know this guy, however. Too bad he's not in a Bucks uni. Speaking of which, did anyone see the Bucks wearing their alternate third jerseys at the home opener? They looked suh-weet! Made me wish I was alive for the Big O/Alcindor years.)

34 Paul Pierce (Part of last year's NBA Finals that just made everyone outside of LA and Boston wish they could go back 20 years ago to watch real stars play.)

80 Caron Butler (Seeing and hearing his name always makes me think about robots. I am the K-RON 5200, ready to be of service.)

6 Luis Scola Chrome/Refractor/Something Shiny (843/999)

Topps of the Class Theft Deterrent Greg Oden (Anyone else find it unsettling that the guy urging kids to stay in school completed one year of college? I'm not knocking his choice to leave school; athletic success has a narrow window of opportunity while school will always be there. But couldn't Topps have selected some like...I don't know...Grant Hill, four-year graduate of Duke University? Or perhaps Emeka Okafor, who was a two-time Academic All-America at Connecticut?

Just throwing it out there.

2008-09 Topps Treasury Basketball

This is that stuff that Topps has to bribe collectors into buying. I laughed it off at first, then I saw Larry Bird on the pack. C'mon guys, it's Larry Bird. He looks like he's on the five dollar bill! Larry should be on the five dollar bill instead of that other guy. Abe may be tall, but HE AIN'T GOT GAME. I open this pack for America, Freedom, Victory, Apple Pie and Three Pointers. And money. LOTS AND LOTS OF MONEY. Mostly for the money. It's the American way!

47 Andrei Kirilenko
30 Allen Iverson
69 Ryan Gomes
53 Al Jefferson
95 Bill Russell Chrome Refractor #430/999

So the cards are sort of greenish and vaguely look like the etching designs on currency. The cards also have sort of a cheap feel to them. No gloss, no foil (which isn't necessarily bad) and the card stock reminds me of an unglossy Topps base set. It's ok, it just reminds me of a low-end product and not a five cards for three bucks kind of thing. One that is basically marketed as being like MONEY.The backs have the scrolly high class money motif going on too, but instead of Stats you have "Money Skills" and "Money Splits". Money Skills are pretty straightforward, they talk about they guy's style of play. I bet you didn't know Ryan Gomes had an "outsized heart" did you? I bet you didn't know who the heck Ryan Gomes was, did you? The splits are a little different, they show the player's field goal percentage and points per game while at home or on the road, vs. the division and conference and in wins and losses. Three pint percentage is one of the categories so if you're Al Jefferson and have never taken a three in your life, you get a row of .000s.

I got one chrome refractor card of Bill Russell in this pack. The base cards look cheap, but these look FANTASTIC. The fact that it's Bill freaking Russell may be swaying my opinion though. I looked on the back and discovered that the Hawks originally drafted him 3rd overall in the 1956 draft. I then wept for 36 straight hours. According to the odds on the wrapper a Bronze refractor is 1:5 packs. I'm guessing this is a bronze, there's no indication of what it is on the card. Another interesting thing is that Rip cards are 1:32 packs. That seems awfully low odds, I guess Topps is going all out with the bribery angle. those must be really easy for the cherrypickers to find as the rest of the cards are really thin. As for the rest of the cards, I got AI, two Wolves and a Russian goon. I mean goon as a compliment by the way, I patterned my entire game on aggravated goonery. As for what I think of Treasury, well, the Refractors are amazing, the base cards are meh and it would be interesting to open a rip card if one could ever be found. If you actually like hoops cards, there's got to be better stuff out there.