What's the must have rookie card in basketball?

[AdamMcDermott88]

Football is NT, Contenders, and Chrome. What is it for basketball?

When I collected as a kid the must have was SP Authentic, Chrome, Finest.

Looks like Exquisite, Immaculate, and Flawless now. Out of Flawless and Immaculate are either of those more distinguishable as the better rookie card? Also, are the "true" rookie cards the /99 RPAs?

[rudyjustinfarrell]

I would say National Treasures. It's still a fairly new product, but older than Flawless and Immaculate.

[WaiverWire]

Used to be National Treasures. Last year I would take Flawless and Immaculate over National Treasures. This year? Who knows. But don't go all in on NT, as some of the later releases might be better.

[knicksguy86]

Current players I'd say flawless. I'm partial to exquisite with the older crowd.

[crazymj]

Still nt since flawless didnt have true rc auto patch of most RCs. Yea the base auto is nice but I rather have the auto with the patch in nt. Also immaculate have some nice rpa too. Maybe prizm still the basic rc to have

[kaushikentucky]

Low end: Prestige/Threads
Mid end: Prizm, Contenders, Gold Standard
High end: 1st is Flawless 2nd is NT and 3rd is Immaculate according to prices

My personal favorite is immaculate, the design is top notch!

[smalltown]

For me the three i'd pick from are:

Prizm - No auto, No patch - Maybe the rainbow
NT - RPA
Flawless - Base or Auto

To me everything else is filler. Immaculate is really nice too. I just don't see it as a must have.

[Darkknight6]

for me it is

-Nationla Treasure ( i love the RPA #ed to 199 and teh Gold version #ed to 25)
-Immaculate (love the Authentic Landry Tag Cards and the other Patch Auto Cards)
-Prizm ( great Colors and the Gold Cards looks amazing)
-Gold Standard ( like the Bling Bling style and the Prime RC auto patch cards are beautiful)


I think flawless is a great Product but to expensive, and the biggest point is that there are no Norris Cole Cards inside. :D

[UltimateDeron]

National Treasures for sure. Flawless' true RC's are not even an auto patch. Actually they aren't even auto'd if you consider the encased diamond cards /20 the true RC's.

1. National Treasures RPA /199
2. Immaculate RPA /99

[Dwade Collector]

Back in the day list::flex::D

1. Exquisite Rookie Auto/Patch
2. Ultimate Rookie Auto
3. SPx Rookie Auto/Jersey
4. SP Authentic Rookie Auto

:D

[knicksguy86]

Back in the day list::flex::D

1. Exquisite Rookie Auto/Patch
2. Ultimate Rookie Auto
3. SPx Rookie Auto/Jersey
4. SP Authentic Rookie Auto

:D

Sp Authentic!!! :)!

[hwc]

Why do people need to have autos and patches for the RC? I want a true RC without auto's and/or patches. The one's with autos and patches are essentially inserts to me.

I'd much rather see the player's college/high school stats than to have a blurb on the CEO of UD/Topps congratulating me on getting this player's auto/patch.

But i guess I'm in the minority on this issue.

[WaiverWire]

If we are talking last year (2012-2013), I think it's tough to beat the Flawless diamond base RC cards. There are only /20. Don't have to worry about tampered patches, traced autos, or fake inscriptions because it's just the card.

[the27guy]

Good thread and good question OP.

A few thoughts on this while I'm on my lunch break (long day here :))

First, this question begs another question... what was Panini doing? In every other year (even back to 03-04) it was fairly easy to determine which rookie was the best rookie. For 2012-13 we have 3 contenders (none of which is Contenders :))

Flawless (The TRUE rookies from the BASE SET... the DIAMONDS). Reasons why? Rarest Rookie cards ever made. Period. End of Story. Also really good looking. Why not? Well, for starters, only ten players have TRUE Flawless Rookies from the base set. What about guys like Kawhi Leonard, Klay Thompson, etc? Reason two, people love auto patches... and these cards don't have auto's or patches.

Immaculate. Reasons why? True RC PATCH AUTO numbered to 99. It's the rarest RC that is a patch auto.

NT Largest Patch, and very good looking, however, 10x more produced than Flawless and 2x more than Immaculate......

So which one is the best? Depends on what you like..... Current price rank is as follows-

1. Flawless (Diamond)
2. NT
3. Immaculate

My rankings go like this

1. Flawless (Diamond)
2. Immaculate
3. NT

... I switched Immaculate and NT on my list because the patch size doesn't really matter to me. I don't care if the NT patch is bigger. It seems to be a bigger target for patch changers.... and rarity has always and will always be the most important factor to me, so I give the nod to Immaculate over NT.

Which one should you buy? My opinion has been and continues to be that if your Rookie is in the diamonds, that's your biggest chase card, and, as reflected in the current prices, it's not close. If your player is not in the Flawless Diamonds, I would go with the Flawless Auto RC set. And after that, it's really a coin flip on NT and Immaculate.

Okay, back to work for me.

[pepsiporch]

Silhouette Prime is the best rookie

[rauchand]

Silhouette Prime is the best rookie


This ^^^. I PC Drummond and have all the RC autos in question, but the Silhouette is still my favorite. Followed closely by my Flawless Diamond, then Immaculate /99.

[the27guy]

Silhouette Prime is the best rookie

As always, I respect your opinion.... I would take a Diamond over the Silo Prime, but that's just because I think it's more scarce, and better looking and I wish the Silos had even a little bit of foil.... but I think I'd take a Silo Prime over Immaculate or NT....

[pepsiporch]

Flawless left out to many good rookies for the diamonds

[the27guy]

Flawless left out to many good rookies for the diamonds

Agreed.... betcha they don't make that mistake again this year.....

I wonder how they made that gaffe. Some guys says "what do you think people would like more, a Carlos Boozer base card to 20 or a Kawhi Leonard RC /20?"

Having said that, it's pretty cool that there are 200 Rookies of ALL COMBINED PLAYERS in the product in the world.

[rookies]

National treasures.
And old stuff exquisite.

[crazymj]

Been wondering this since flawless came out. How come they made RC patch auto of some "RC" and not others?

http://i356.photobucket.com/albums/oo9/mj22333/ED593634-88A7-4EFA-8AF0-FB2D92C5B351_zps2payqy1l.jpg (http://s356.photobucket.com/user/mj22333/media/ED593634-88A7-4EFA-8AF0-FB2D92C5B351_zps2payqy1l.jpg.html)

i know i've seen Lillard rc patch auto, chandler parson patch auto, is there a patter or just random.

[davechappelle]

I doubt if there will be a Flawless for this year's rookie class.

Miss those days when Ultimate Collection, SPX and SPA were the best rookie cards to chase.