Panini America teases return of iconic NBA Hoops line
By Chris Olds | Editor
With the NBA All-Star Game this weekend in Los Angeles, the folks at Panini America — the NBA’s lone trading card licensee — are busy promoting their products at the NBA Jam Session this weekend and there’s already a nugget of news.
The late 1980s and 1990s staple — NBA Hoops — will be returning next season, news noted by four 2011-12 promo cards available at the Panini booth.
As you can see above, the cards feature three of Panini’s spokesmen — John Wall, Kobe Bryant and Kevin Durant — and a fourth guy you might have heard a little bit about this season, Blake Griffin. (How long until he’s part of the Panini lineup?)
The inaugural NBA Hoops set arrived in 1989-90 — a year marked by the arrival of David Robinson‘s highly sought-after Rookie Card — and ran continuously until the 1999-2000 season. Fleer revived the name for the 2004-05 and 2005-06 seasons before it closed its doors.
We’ll have more on this as soon as it’s available.
Chris Olds is the editor of Beckett Baseball. Have a comment, question or idea? Send an e-mail to him at colds@beckett.com. Follow him on Twitter by clicking here.
I like it, and I’m glad the line is coming back, but it just doesn’t have enough of the old school look and feel to it. Hoops needs to be one of those products that’s geared towards the younger or more cash conscious collector, almost like a Topps Total-ish line. The hobby and its card producers really need to do more to dedicate themselves to this largely forgotten segment of the industry!
yet another chance for a card company to take a card line that was great and make it crap
again. Somewhere Lloyd Pawlek just threw up on his laptop.
The return of this product under Panini is great news. I grew up and watched the NBA in the 80’s and 90’s and seeing this card line coming back is like a dream come true. I hope Panini makes it. Either way, I’ll be expecting this cards in my sleeves and binders. I am really starting to love Panini, but Topps is still on the top of my list. UD is just UNDER Topps.
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