Another Sticker Album In The Books (Part 2)! [VERY Scan Heavy]

Alright.  This took forever to put together.  I’m talking about both the post and the album.  It took two waves of purchases from the Panini Sticker website to complete the album and it takes two posts to finish showing it all off.

Admittedly it probably should have been more than 2. Or I should have been less anal about it and not scanned all the unfilled pages.  Too late!

Warning (as if the title wasn’t warning enough):  You’re entering a scan heavy zone. Wear your hard hat. Pictures may fall at any moment.

A hint of what’s to come.  It’s a lot.

Boston fans, are you upset that Ray Allen went to the Heat? I think I might be if I were you, but I don’t know the dynamic.

I forgot Shaq was on the Celtics.  I’m not a fan of his, by the way.

Two O’Neals on the same team. Remember when Jermaine sucked really badly early on?

Tough to root for the Celtics in any situation. I’m glad we’re moving on quickly.

This is what Jay-Z has to work with. Yikes.

Even their poster child here looks bored.  Check out all these dejected faces.

I don’t know who most of these people are.  Usually I’d recognize a couple second-pagers.

Of course I’ve heard of Kris Humphries for all the wrong reasons.  Amazing how some of this pop culture/reality TV crap slaps you upside the head.

AAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH, I’m gonna duuuuuuuuuunnnnnnk!!!!!!!

Andre Iguodala: USA Gold Medalist.  Anyone else surprised he was on the team at all?

See, I’ve heard of some of these guys.  I know they’re not very good, but at least I know the names.

Just imagine what would have happened if the Bulls top players didn’t get injured in the playoffs this year.  76ers would have been 86ed for sure.  Should have been anyway.

I used to like the raptors.  This was back when they were a brand new expansion team.

They lost me for good when they decided to go to a red and black color scheme instead of the eye-burning purple.

I wonder how long it will take Toronto to become relevant contenders.

Hope they’re not waiting for another Cretaceous Period.

Remember kids, it’s pronounced Antwan.  Ignore the spelling.  In fact, ignore the Cavs all together.

What a terrible, terrible team.  Kyrie Irving has a lot of work to do.

Yeah, this isn’t going to get it done.  The talent disparity in the league always amazes me.

Throughout the league you essentially have 10 superstars at any given time, about 15-20 stars, and then the rest are role fillers and bench warmers.  So many top draft picks do virtually nothing.

Richard Hamilton joined the Bulls this past season and, of course, got injured.

I still only know Tayshaun Prince because of that one blog that everyone went crazy over.  I’m too lazy to find a link.

Ben Gordon and Ben Wallace are two more former Bulls.  Both contributed nicely for us if I remember right.

These ain’t exactly the Bad Boys I remember from the 80s.

Boy, there sure are a lot of teams in the NBA, aren’t there?

Can you believe that 16 of 30 teams make it into the playoffs?  I probably ranted about this before.

That means every year teams with losing records are in contention for a title.  And all of the series are 7 games long.  What a terrible system.

Oh hey, Tyler Hansborough.  A perfect example of domination in college which for whatever reason doesn’t translate into the NBA.  Aside from pushover college opponents, I can’t really explain why that would be, but everyone seemed to know this was going to happen to him.

The Bucks could be okay if they had a star player on their team.  You could also say that about every team.

I liked Jennings for a while, then got sick of his whining.

John Salmons was solid on the Bulls.  I didn’t watch tons of games, but I remember him coming through several times when I did.

I also wish the Bucks would go back to the purple instead of green.

Get this ball away from me!!!!!!!!!

The Hawks have/had a good team, but from all accounts an extremely overpaid one.

All I know is that I used to play Tecmo NBA basketball as the Hawks (when I wasn’t playing as the Bulls, that is) and Dominique Wilkins dominated.

Zaza!

Oh, Michael Jordan.  There are times where I wish you would step away from the game completely.

Joining the Wizards and buying into the Bobcats are two of those times.

If you thought the Cavs were bad, you were right. But the Bobcats are much worse.  Don’t get me started on how they should be the Hornets.

Perfect example of a team that should be eliminated completely from the league.  The talent pool isn’t large enough to support 30 teams worth suiting up.

Do I really need to say anything?

I can’t believe the Heat won despite some mismanaging of Bosh’s playing time.

Next year will hopefully be different.

All the Bulls needs to do is make it to the 8th seed, then who knows.

Big Baby Dwight is now a Laker.

I’m sure that will end well.

Bring back Penny Hardaway and Nick Anderson.

Hell, bring back Little Penny.

While we’re on the topic, bring back the Washington Bullets.

I do like that the franchise let fans submit their ideas for name changes and that it was ultimately picked by them.

The fans made the right choice from the finalists, although I don’t remember the runners-up.

It would be cool if there were another team called the Warlocks.  That’s a matchup I’d watch.

I’m sure Dallas fans are happy about the title they won, but not me.

Sure, it’s great that the Lakers didn’t win another one, but I can’t stand Mark Cuban.

I happen to be of the mindset that he knows very little about business and most of his money and success was a lot of luck and timing.

Then he made good investments after he made his money, but that’s about it.

Oh, Grizzlies.

Unlike the Raptors, I’m glad they changed their logo and color scheme. That crazy light blue wasn’t cutting it.

Hasheem Thabeet.  When will teams learn to stop drafting the super tall lanky people?

If there’s no substance surrounding those bones, they’re going to be on the bench with injuries most of their career, or be thrown around like ragdolls in the paint.

How the hell are the Spurs still relevant?

Also, why would Tony Parker cheat on his wife?  With a teammate’s wife?  People with money = people with confidence = think they can do anything.

Also, how is Antonio McDyess still playing at this point?

The dude looked like he was 35 when he entered the league. So many unanswered questions on this team.

Kevin Love is one of my favorite current non-Chicago players.  Anytime you have a bigger guy with an all-around game and can shoot behind the arc, I’m taking notice.

Imagine a front court with Garnett and Love.  I know it wasn’t going to happen, but hey.

So glad the Bulls didn’t draft Beasley.  I couldn’t imagine why it would be a consideration to begin with.

How long before those Garnett records start falling?

The should-have-wons.

Durantula is another favorite.  I was rooting for them in the Finals, but it simply didn’t happen.  Maybe if the Bulls stay out of it, like most expect, they can get their title out of the way.

Too bad this team couldn’t have stayed in Seattle.

But it’s nice to see the OK fans are supporting them so far.

I promise we’re getting close to the end.  Still with me?

I don’t have much to say about the Blazers other than I know they have some ravenous fans.

They also have Greg Oden. Another broken big man.

It’s amazing how things can fall apart so quickly for some people.

How about those off-season moves the Lakers made, huh?  Will it be enough?

Can these people all actually work together like an Olympic squad, or will it be too many egos.

Of course, I’m rooting for their failure.  I have to.

I mean, look at them. They are way too happy.  Come on earthquake!

Oh look, it’s the new Laker.

He’s a fun player to watch, but why would I want Nash to win a title with LA?

Grant Hill.  He was my secondary player collector focus, after Jordan.  I’m really happy I stopped collecting his cards for the most part.

Especially considering the dude is still playing, and playing pretty well, in this very hit-minded low #ed hobby landscape.  I’d have a lot of competition.

Isn’t there talk of moving the Kings to another city?  I could be making that up.

I wouldn’t be shocked. It’s not like the city is rolling in dough.

It’s also a little weird that California has supported so many NBA teams in the past.

Especially in markets that don’t have other sports franchises.

Oh hey, look! We’re done with the team pages.

Kobe has had so many Finals appearances that they made a two-page spread about them.

It’s an interesting concept for their big exclusive contract, but I’m less interested in that and more so in stickers #331 and #332.

Look! They fit together into one bigger sticker!  This is what I remembered and loved about sticker books of yore.  I wish they had one that was 4 stickers big. Those were the best.

As you saw in the team pages, NBA is a diversely populated sport. Talent is found all around the world.

These boring stickers show how the NBA is looking to expand on that presence.

Another double sticker is coming! Let’s see how well I lined it up.

Honestly, some of these are really lame.  A logo with a plain colored background and a couple players bookending it.  Bleh.

Now we get into the rookies.  There are 4 pages of them.  See how many you recognize.

I don’t follow the league all that closely, but I do know that even within these top 6 picks, probably 3 at the most will have a good career.

Picks 7-12, almost through the lottery picks and scraping the bottom of the barrel already.

Sorry guys, but odds are none of you will be better than an okay starter or 6th man.

Now we’re into filler territory.

Doesn’t it seem ridiculous?  Either they need too much seasoning to get better, or they simply can’t cut it in the NBA.

Wrapping up the first round.

I don’t know why they even have a second round of the draft sometimes.  Honestly.  It’s considered a virtual miracle if anyone makes any impact in the league from the second round.

Which brings us to the last page.  The award winners.  I wish the MLB album would do this.

These look nice and it rounds out the yearbook quite well.  Good way to end the album.

And there you have it.  All 70-something pages of the album are filled up.  I’m not sure if I would do this again.  I think there needs to be a happy medium between the 32 pages of the MLB and the 70+ of the NBA.  That would be the perfect size.  I shouldn’t have to buy stickers online to complete my album.  Maybe I need to actively search out sticker traders.

Maybe I should stop typing. This post is long enough.