2015-16 Panini Prestige Basketball lands as a Target exclusive

By Ryan Cracknell | Hobby Editor

2015-16 Panini Prestige Basketball has lots of action photography. It also has autographs and memorabilia cards to go with other inserts. On all accounts, it’s a standard release that sticks with other Prestige products over the years.

But it’s taking a page from some recent history, arriving as a Target exclusive for the second year in a row.

And, once again, there are several different configurations each with their own exclusives.

The 2015-16 Panini Prestige Basketball base set takes a basic approach. All the shots in the main part of the release show in-game action. No borders exist on the cards. Rather there’s a silver foil banner with the Prestige logo in the middle. Underneath is the nameplate, which has also been done in silver foil.

Numbered Bonus Shots parallels come in several colors such as Red, Blue, Purple and Green.

Plus boxes have the most autographs and memorabilia cards of any of the configurations. These ten-pack boxes (six cards per pack) have one on-card rookie autograph plus three additional hits. Six autograph insert sets are only in Plus boxes. Jumbo Freshman Fabrics and Checkerboard (/99) parallels are also exclusive to these boxes.

2015-16 Panini Prestige Basketball blasters have one autograph or memorabilia card. They’ve also got four Acetate Rookie cards. A blaster-exclusive memorabilia set has a checklist of ten rookies. Also randomly inserted here are insert parallels that are limited to 99 copies or less.

Hanger boxes have a pair of rookie cards and one Acetate Rookie. Freshman Flashback Jumbo memorabilia cards are only found in these types of boxes.

Each gravity feed pack has a rookie card plus one Brilliant Beginnings card that isn’t found in any other packs. Brilliant Beginnings have Starburst parallels that land 1:9 packs. Crystal insert parallels, another gravity pack exclusive, are numbered to 125.