Panini Unwraps exlcusives

While the football variation of playoff contenders seems to be garnering all the attention the basketball version has had a bit of a shake up. This year there is an emphasis on manufactured rookie patch autographs. Manufactured patches don't normally go down too well with collectors, so it'll be interesting to see the reaction to this product. With the emphasis on rookies game worn jersey/patch cards aren't really possible, so I'm guessing this is Panini testing out the waters to see whether the patch cards get a better reception than event worn cards. Below is a box break on this product. The product will retail at $6 a pack and $120 a box, with many online retailers offering pre-sale deals. The product will officially hit shelves on the 23rd of February.

Also in the break Panini dropped a couple of exclusive announcements. Including the fact that the NBA version of the 24 carat gold cards will be available in NBA Gold standard, which is due out in May. No more details about the cards were revealed. It was however revealed that as well as Kevin Durrant Panini has signed deals with Paul Pierce, and David Robinson. Other things revealed with very little detail in the video was that there would be buybacks and veteran autographs as part of this years NBA playoff contenders patches.