With the NBA season kicking off I figured I would pick up a good, solid basketball card hobby box. My choice? The 2007-08 Upper Deck SP Authentic Hobby box pictured below. Why? Two words: Kevin Durant. The Oklahoma City Thunder are a good young team with some good players and Durant leads the way. Durant should have a huge year and I hope it drives this SP Authentic box up. This box of 07-08 SP Authentic would really be doing well if Portland Trailblazer Greg Oden had played well in the NBA. The 2007 number one draft pick has been injury plagued and has done nothing so far in his young career.


As always, any hobby box that I purchase, I never open. I just keep it in the shipping box and put it away.



It used to be tempting to want to just tear into the packs. But I have bad luck with opening packs so I just leave it factory sealed. Although I did get lucky back in 2006.

I purchased a box of 2005-06 Upper Deck SPX from Blowout Cards and I pulled a Chris Paul Winning Materials card numbered to 50. I ended up selling it on eBay for $125.00. So, I have had SOME luck.

But I have had some real stinkers too. For example, I purchased a case of Fleer Greats of The Game back in 2007. I was debating on leaving the case factory sealed.

But the lure of having a chance to pull a Chris Paul, Deron Williams, Danny Granger, Andrew Bynum or other good young players from the 2005 Draft was too much for me. I just had to bust open the case.

The results? The best card that pulled from that case was a Rookie AUTO of Jason Maxiell!
And that was it! Now, Maxiell is a good young player for the Detroit Pistons but he's no Chris Paul or Andrew Bynum. Yeah, I did get a few autographs from players from the past. No Larry Bird or Magic Johnson of course.

Am I in the majority or minority for feeling this way? Do any of you sports card collectors out there feel the same way that I do? When you buy a hobby box, do you start ripping open the packs or do you just keep it factory sealed?

Visit Kevin-Durant-Rookie-Cards.com for more Durant rookies up for sale.