Mavs for Knicks

A few weeks ago I got an email from Raymond asking if a Landry Fields Rookie card I had pulled was available. I told him it was and that I'd also be glad to send him whatever Knicks I had laying around as well. So off they went, and in return I got MAVS!

Ray included quite a mix of cards. Here we've got several ex-Mavs as well as a couple of Legends and current players Kidd and Barea. I honestly don't remember Darius Washington even a little bit.

Josh Howard was a good player for the Mavs while he was here and a few years ago we all pretty much thought he'd be Dirk's Pippen for many years to come. Unfortunately, or fortunately to some, Josh had some off the court troubles and injury issues that got him shipped to Washington.

Since Howard never really became Dirk's Pippen, that role has been taken over by JET a lot of the time. I really like Terry a lot, but he sure can go on some nasty cold streaks from time to time. Stackhouse added some much need attitude and toughness while he was here, helping the Mavs to not be quite so "soft".

I've already got 218 Michael Finley cards in my collection (second only to Dirk), but Ray managed to send 2 that I didn't have so that was great! Devin Harris was another Maverick that we all thought would be around for a while, but he now plays in NJ after the trade to get Kidd back.

Raymond also sent me an auto card of Nick Fazekas. Uh... well, he played in Dallas a total of 4 games in 07-08 averaging 2.3 minutes and 1.0 point per game. He then played another 22 games for the Clippers and then disappeared, I guess. The Clippers will do that to you.

The last batch of cards are the Dirks. The current Dirk count is 351, but Ray again managed to add 2 that I didn't already have. Now if we can just get the real Dirk back on the court that would be great. I'm not really liking this losing business. Thanks again for the trade Raymond. Later.

What About The Little Guy?

Well, it looks like we'll have a new Slam Dunk champ this year, if anyone even cares anymore. Lil' Nate won't be going for the three-peat so it will be between the Los Angeles Clippers' Blake Griffin, the Milwaukee Bucks' Brandon Jennings, the Oklahoma City Thunder's Serge Ibaka and the Washington Wizards' JaVale McGee. I'm betting Blake will win on reputation alone though I'm not sure how creative he can be. I'm also curious to see what Jennings can do since he's only had like 3 or 4 dunks in games this season. Personally, I still think this thing needs more big names to compete like the good old days, but somehow they manage to keep it going. Probably, because I'm not the only one who somehow gets suckered into watching this thing year after year. What about you guys, any interest? Later.

A Custom Plea!

Dear Dirk,
Please come back soon, we need you real bad! Later.

My First Fathead

I pulled and envelope out of the box a while back and it was from a reader named Richard I'd traded with before. He sent some mascots for Baby Peas awhile back and then ran across some Rangers I guess he missed the first time, so this was a surprise.

He sent 3 cards. The first card is a guy I've never heard of, the second is a nice painted Julio Borbon and the third is of Pudge in his early Ranger days. Richard also sent something that was a first for me. Fatheads.

Specifically, Fathead Tradeables. I'd seen the boxes of these in stores, but I'd never actually seen what they were. Unlike the big Fatheads that take up your wall, these are about 5x7". They are basically big stickers though I doubt that I'll ever stick them anywhere. I'm not sure if they are actually reusable like the larger ones claim to be, but they are pretty cool. I just need to figure out how to store them now. Thanks, for the cards Richard. Later.

Florida Sucks, But It's Also Great!

Wow, it feels like I've been gone forever. Some of you probably thought I was, though I'm sure many more didn't even notice. Anyway, my lack of posting was a direct result of being away from home. Where was I you ask? In Florida, freezing my butt off of course! Goose was playing in the Disney Soccer Showcase in Orlando, so we left TX at 6am on Christmas day and drove all the way to Florida for the tournament. I wasn't too keen on having to leave on Christmas day and I sure didn't want to think of all the money we were going to spend on gas, hotel, food and whatever else. So I guess you could say I was really pissed when this happened.

Yeah, one hour after arriving in Orlando on my way back to the hotel from the most congested Wal-mart ever and wham! I was one lane from being safely in the hotel parking lot. Traffic around Disney the week after Christmas sucks big time. The worst part was, it was actually my fault for turning in front of another car. The traffic was just so ridiculous! The 2 lanes I was crossing had never ending traffic backed up for miles so when the drivers of both lanes stopped and waved me through the gap I went. Problem was, there were 3 lanes (which I somehow missed. I would have bet a million bucks there were only 2!) and the 3rd driver wasn't really letting me through. So yeah, the trip is off to a good start.

Then comes the soccer part. Now I love to watch Goose play, but I'd just as soon do it in TX as Florida. There, it's always been free, but nooooo, Mickey's gotta make some money somehow. Might as well be off of the parents who drive their kids halfway across the country to play. Wanna know how much it cost to get me, Mrs. Big D and Baby Peas into the ESPN Wide World of Sports Complex for ONE of Goose's games. 37 FREAKING DOLLARS!!! The only reason we didn't have to pay that 2 days in a row was because one night his team played the last game of the day so we snuck in after the box office closed and went in without paying. Man what a racket! At least Goose's team did well, though you'd never know it by this picture.

He's actually got a Silver medal around his neck, but he looks like he's the one who just wrecked the car. What can I say, he's extremely competitive. (The first and actually only time I ever heard him cuss, he was three and playing Memory. He flipped over 2 cards that didn't match and let out a SHIT! At least he used it in context.)

So the trip was somewhat good and quite a bit bad and I'm not looking forward to going back to Florida anytime soon. (Though I will have to go fetch the Dodge once the repairs have been made.) After arriving home and checking my mailbox, however, my opinion of Florida got a little brighter. That's because there was a package from the Troll inside. I had made some custom cards of Troll's wife, Esther Gin & Juice, so that he could give them out as stocking stuffers for Christmas. This package was my reward and what a good one it was. Check it out!

Mrs. Troll sent me a thank you package consisting of a program for one of their roller derby matches, a team magnet and what do you know! My own custom coming right back at me but new and improved. My very first TTM custom auto of Esther Gin & Juice herself. In silver sharpie even! It's totally awesome and makes it one of the coolest cards in my collection. That's not all though. She also threw in this...

a rookie card of one of my all time favorite baseball players Tony Gwynn. I didn't have this card yet, so it was a great surprise too! Maybe Florida isn't so bad after all. At least I know I've got a few friends there. Thanks for the great gifts guys, this was a really fun trade. Later.

2010-11 NBA Panini Threads

Panini's newest NBA release is 2010-11 Threads. Here is the wrapper. It's got Derrick Rose on the front. Inside you'll find 10 cards. Let's see what they look like.

Not bad. We've got full bleed photos at the top with a band of gray crisscrossing bars at the bottom. The bars include the Threads logo and player name and while they are the neutral colors we've come to expect from Panini, it looks just fine to me since it's a pretty small portion of the card anyway. However, if they had used team colors here like on the wrapper, I think it would look even better. No biggie though. The first 6 cards included some pretty nice players including Kevin Love who is having a great season so far this year. I'm just glad he's proving that there are still some American white guys who can play in this league.

The next 4 cards include a nice insert of Bill Russell along with the crazy mop top of Robin Lopez. All in all I really like this set, though again there are not enough players represented from each team. Panini has got to put out a "flagship" set with at least 10 players from each squad. I do have one other complaint though, and that is the backs.

The design of the backs is fine, my problem is with the photos used there. The majority of them are better than the fronts! Look at these 6 for example. On each I think the back photo would make a more interesting card if it were on the front. Panini tends to use some pretty bland photos at times and I even wonder if they have decent photos to use. Then I see something like this and just wonder what is wrong with them. The same thing happened last year. They used a lot of blah photos in most of their sets but then Studio shows up with some really nice shots. Problem there was they were all used for the second smaller black & white photo in the background and appeared to be an afterthought. Come on Panini! If you've got great shots, put them on display proudly.

Like I said, I like the set but Panini still has some design issues they need to work out. I really feel like they are holding back and just being lazy a lot of the time, but they're getting better. Sorta. In some ways. Later.

My Original Favorite.

The Dallas Mavericks have always been my favorite team. Not only are they my favorite basketball team, they are number 1 in my heart in all of sports. I didn't even really like basketball when the Mavericks came around in 1980, but then a couple of things happened. I finally gave in to all my friends and went out for basketball in the 5th grade. I've always been way taller than everyone else, but I didn't like hoops until I tried it and guess what, I've loved it ever since. The other factor was this guy...

Mr. Mark Anthony Aguirre. Once I started playing, I began watching and growing up in Illinois at the time I watched a lot of DePaul Blue Demon basketball and Mark was the best. When he was drafted by the Mavs they instantly became my favorite team and have been ever since. I followed them the best I could from afar. My dad would travel to Dallas on business and bring me back Maverick gear and I even subscribed to the Dallas Mavericks Press newspaper. After my senior year, my dad was transferred to Dallas and I couldn't believe it! I could finally see my Mavs in person and watch all the games on TV. Sadly though, shortly after my move, this happened...

Mark was traded to the friggin' Pistons for Adrian Dantley. I was crushed. While I still loved the Mavs, the front office was not on my friend list for quite a while after this. The next couple years after Mark left the Mavs, they began their downward spiral into being the worst franchise on earth for a period of about 10 years. That sucked big time.

For Mark though the trade worked out perfectly as he helped lead the Pistons to back to back championships. Lucky for me the Pistons were good, so at least Mark was on TV a lot for me to see. After several years in Detroit, Mark finally wound up his career as a Los Angeles Clipper. Dirk has surpassed Mark as my all time most favorite player, but I'm glad that Panini is still making a few cards at least of my original favorite. What about you? Who is your original favorite? Later.