Smith scored 11 points in 36 minutes. Not his finest moment as a college basketball player, but he did not play a game his senior year in high school due to a knee injury. Smith also graduated from high school a semester early and began classes in the spring semester before his freshman year on the court.
Smith's time at State was completely wasted. His most famous play as a Wolfpack player was his dunk at the end of the Duke game. The basket did not even count since it was after the buzzer.
He has the chance to go down as one of the better players to have put on the Wolfpack uniform, yet they could not even ride his talent to a .500 record. The coach gave up and got fired, other players stopped playing up to their ability, and Smith left for the NBA.
Before he left Raleigh, I did manage to enjoy watching Dennis play, while ignoring the rest of the team. It was a challenge.
Exciting dunks where he run through entire defenses. State lost this game to Wake Forest by 30.
Three pointers that were shot from 6 feet behind the 3 point line. State lost this game too.
It was fun to watch a player that talented playing for a team that I follow.
NC State made a basketball card of their point guard before he left for the NBA. The school has a table of promotional items on the concourse of the PNC Arena. All kinds of posters and schedules for the different sports teams are always there, along with a set of basketball cards of one Wolfpack player per game. The Fayetteville, North Carolina native had a card at some point.
Someone in promotions at State knows how to make a nice card. I like the red and white stripes with the black and white Raleigh skyline in the background. Nice picture of Smith in the front. The card is a winner.
I knew after this card, that I would have to wait until someone put out an NBA card of Smith. In June I started seeing some of the previews for the upcoming NBA card releases. I was ready to get a Dennis Smith card the first chance I could get one.
Panini made some basketball cards of Smith this fall. I was not expecting many NC State cards of him, but have been surprised. Several have him wearing a State jersey with a Dallas Mavericks logo on the card, but I am still okay with that. The problem with getting these cards this fall was.......
The price.
The Snorting Bull is a self-sustained financial operation. Money for cards comes from money from other cards, so the high end cards that sometimes appear here are either pulled out of packs of cards, or purchased after careful consideration and some time on COMC or Ebay.
I have no problem sinking money back into baseball cards. Non-baseball cards always give me pause. Do I really need this? Do I like this player that much? I think I have had to ask myself these questions about two times in the thirty some years that I have collected.
This is the most expensive basketball card that I owned, prior to what is an obvious Dennis Smith card appearing later in the post, was a T.J. Warren autograph.
Not sure the T.J. Warren market extends beyond a few people in Raleigh, maybe a few people around Durham (Roll Pirates!!!), and I think people in Phoenix like him too. Are Suns writers and bloggers still posting stuff about trading a forward averaging 20 points and 6 rebounds a game? "Damn your 15 foot jumpers and running floaters, threes and dunks!!!" Not sold on the Phoenix thing. His cards really are not that expensive.
For a long time, I could not justify spending $100 on a Dennis Smith basketball card. Luckily, his cards have gotten considerably less expensive. I was surprised that they did not hold up in value better since he's scoring about 15 a game with 5 assists with fancy dunks on YouTube.
There are also now actual Dallas Mavericks autographs of Dennis Smith. So, his NC State autographed cards are now more like a $30 decision. Farewell Kyle Schwarber autographs. Hello Dennis.
A dream has been realized. That is probably too far, but I was really excited that this card ended up in my collection. I did a little bargaining back and forth with an Ebay seller on a Best Offer for the card. My short essay on how much I love Dennis earned me a slight discount, but it also scored me two other Dennis Smith cards wearing the Wolfpack uniform.....
We have got this game day card.....
Section 190? Don't think they have one of those at NC State. Row 62? Seems like it might be the parking lot. They should have put J. Cole's seat section and number on the card. Right?
I like the picture though and the card is red. A little disjointed with all of the boxes on the front of the card. It reminds me a little bit of the Fleer Authentix set from the mid 2000s, but not designed as well.
Next.
I like this card a lot. I wish the font on the word "colors" was a little different, but the picture is nice and the general design of the card is nice.
The two free Dennis Smith cards were great, but this Ebayer truly understood my love of my alma mater and threw in a football card of Matt Dayes as well. He was a good college player the last few years at State......
but he ended up on the Browns. He's a pretty powerful back, really strong runner which is why the Browns are using him as kick returner. SMH. I like the looks of this card too. I have the regular base version of this card. Nice picture of Dayes and the card is not fouled up with a Browns logo, or any other mention of that team and the city of Cleveland.