So to help offset the bad news thread i had to post last night, here i am going to follow it up with a good news thread!
on March 31 i tied the knot with my sweetheart Daniella, dont worry im not going to bore you lot with wedding photos..im going to share just what i know you all want to see!
on April 1st the morning after the wedding we jetted off to the USA for our honeymoon for the best part of a month!
while in California i visted a card shop called MVP sports cards in Laguna Hills. it was a great little shop. it really took me back to basketball cards glory days back in the 90s where you could find stores like this all over Australia. they had a big range of singles that was alot of fun to look thru, but nothing i was really chasing, so i grabbed 2 boxes, first was an 09-10 Absolute memorabilia, never done one of these before but had done a 10-11 ab mem in the past and had alot of fun with it. second was a 10-11 Gold Standard...i was a bit iffy about this as ive been burned twice in the past, but figured hey, third times a charm right?!
so the 09-10 Absolute Mem went like this-
Base-
Nash
Kobe
Brockman RC 387/499
Bosh
Ray Allen X2
Ming
Z Randolph
Maggette
Spud Webb 40/499 (not sure why it was numbered, not a spectrum, maybe all RCs and Retireds were numbered?)
the hits were-
Kevin Garnett Spectrum 33/100
Kobe Bryant Absolute Heroes 23/100
Chris Paul Hoopla JSY 21/25
Toney Douglas RPM 495/499
Gerald Henderson RPM 10/499
so at this point im thinking yeah, dissappointing box, the two Autos were taken up by two fairly average rookies, low numbered CP3 jsy is nice, but not nice enough to save this box,
but then....the very last card to come out of the very last pack of this box....
out came this...
Star Gazing Lebron James Prime 4/10
boom!! nice 3 colour patch from the cavs Alternate jersey! loving it!
so next is the gold Standard, but before i go on, a few days prior to this i actually wondered into wallmart. imagine a coles and a kmart all in the one shop, then times the size by 10. that is wallmart, turns out they sell sportscards!! as theres not alot of nba cards out at the moment all they really had is loose packs of NBA hoops, so i bought a couple for about 90 cents a pack! nothing really in there, my only 'hits' were tyreke evans and Landry fields hoop dreams inserts. i know this product is a throw back to the orginal hoops back in the day. but what an ugly product! its really bad!!
any way onto the Gold Standard. pretty nervous about this, the last 2 boxes i opened turned up nothing PC worthy for me and i would be lucky if i had made back 25-35% of the box price,
so it went a little something like this-
base #/299-
Jason Terry
Christian Laettner
Danilo Gallinari
Jose Calderon Gold Crowns 36/299
Rick Barry Golden Age 202/299
Tim Duncan Gold Nuggets 17/299
Bernard King Gold Mining 164/299
Bernard King Team Patch Auto 47/199
David Thompson Golden Age Auto 86/99 (suprised me by been an on card auto, beautiful looking card.
and then..in this exact order-
Kobe Bryant 24k Jersey on card auto 13/49
wow!!! but then.....
Kobe Bryant Gold Nuggets Patch Auto 12/24
holy crap a dual kobe box!! and heres the kicker, just to add a tiny bit more value to the box (like it needed any more hits!) the last card it spits out just for fun is-
Steve Nash Gold Nuggets Prime 11/25
a nice bonus! im telling you, they got some Kobe Mojo happening over in California! from 2 boxes came a kobe base, a kobe insert #/100 then a kobe jersey auto and patch auto!! i would love to say that this makes up for the theft of my Rondo auto and Kobe Flight team auto....but it really doesnt.
the flight team auto is going to be a bitch to replace.
while over there we also went to a couple of games
lakers @ CLippers (amazing atmosphere! was going for the clippers, this is the game where Blake threw down on Pau Gasol and was just rated 9th best play of the season on NBA Action! lakers came up on top in a close finish, and i now have a new found respect for Kobe watching him go to work. he was amazing.)
Heat @ Nets ( it was strange and kind of sad been in New Jersey, and heat fans out numbered Nets fans. i was Shattered my boy D-Wade did not suit up for this. but relivead that Lebron and Bosh was out there, because i knew there was a possibility they could have all been resting that night. for the nets unforunately D-Will and Wallace did not suit up for this game. ill be honest, i expected a potential blowout, but the nets put on a show, led by a Beasting Kris Humphries and also Marshon Brooks, they led most of the game suprisingly. i was getting nervous for a bit! i hate to say it but humphries was an absolute gun in that first half! finished up with 29 points! but thankfully Lebron went on a 4th Quarter rampage and brought the heat back winning the game by 3 and having a 37 point game.
we had great seats, we were the row behind the media desk and only a few metres away from Jay-z and Beyonce!! and the best moment of the game actually happened when the game ended, Lebron went over and said hi to Jay and beyonce, they had there little nephew with them, lebron pulls off his head band, shooters arms, and all other sweat bands his wearing and dressed them on there nephew! it was very cute! and then he takes both shoes off, gets a sharpie from the media desk, signs them both and gives em to the kid as well! the lucky kid was so thrilled! i was very jealous of him!)
Celtics @ Knicks ( i love both these teams, i have a big soft spot for the Celtics, but we had to get behind the home team at madison Square garden! so i wore a melo jersey and my wife A Landry fields jersey and we had alot of fun! boston did not do so well but knicks put on a show! they were shooting 3s like mad men! it was insane! the whole crowd was going nuts! b4 the game my wife asked me ( who the effs Steve Novak?!) believe me...now she knows!!!! and melo..wow....if i had to pick an MVP out of the 3 games i saw, it would go to melo. he was just amazing, and ended up with a triple Double. this was the game where rondo went down for a few minutes, i was looking the wrong way at the time, so i still dont know what happened there, but it was scary, you could see the fear on all the celtics team and staffs faces. but what was amazing was when he did finally get up after a few minutes, madison square garden, packed to capacity of die hard knicks fans stood up and gave rondo a standing ovation. that was really great to see.)
i did take a few picks but my facebook isnt working at the moment so i cant get to them, ill be honest though, there hardly worth sharing, id didnt take many game time photos as i would rather enjoy the moment then stare thru a camera, but no matter how close we sat, unless you have some sick SLR camera with a good zoom, the pictures you take are not going to do any justice at all to how good is was been there in person..
so there you go. thats the basketball portion of my trip! hope you enjoyed the journey!
P.S. omg.....shoes are so cheap in america that its almost not fair.......i had to buy a few pairs and one of my only regrets is i did not buy more!
Nike Lebron 9 Easter Day limited Edition
Nike KD4 (i dont know how limited this colourway is, but only a few stores i went into had them)
Jordan BCT (believe it or not these were too cheap not to buy on special at $45!
and my wife bought two awesome pairs as well-
Nike Kobe VII 'Cheetah'
Nike Kobe VII 'Jellyfish'
on March 31 i tied the knot with my sweetheart Daniella, dont worry im not going to bore you lot with wedding photos..im going to share just what i know you all want to see!
on April 1st the morning after the wedding we jetted off to the USA for our honeymoon for the best part of a month!
while in California i visted a card shop called MVP sports cards in Laguna Hills. it was a great little shop. it really took me back to basketball cards glory days back in the 90s where you could find stores like this all over Australia. they had a big range of singles that was alot of fun to look thru, but nothing i was really chasing, so i grabbed 2 boxes, first was an 09-10 Absolute memorabilia, never done one of these before but had done a 10-11 ab mem in the past and had alot of fun with it. second was a 10-11 Gold Standard...i was a bit iffy about this as ive been burned twice in the past, but figured hey, third times a charm right?!
so the 09-10 Absolute Mem went like this-
Base-
Nash
Kobe
Brockman RC 387/499
Bosh
Ray Allen X2
Ming
Z Randolph
Maggette
Spud Webb 40/499 (not sure why it was numbered, not a spectrum, maybe all RCs and Retireds were numbered?)
the hits were-
Kevin Garnett Spectrum 33/100
Kobe Bryant Absolute Heroes 23/100
Chris Paul Hoopla JSY 21/25
Toney Douglas RPM 495/499
Gerald Henderson RPM 10/499
so at this point im thinking yeah, dissappointing box, the two Autos were taken up by two fairly average rookies, low numbered CP3 jsy is nice, but not nice enough to save this box,
but then....the very last card to come out of the very last pack of this box....
out came this...
Star Gazing Lebron James Prime 4/10
boom!! nice 3 colour patch from the cavs Alternate jersey! loving it!
so next is the gold Standard, but before i go on, a few days prior to this i actually wondered into wallmart. imagine a coles and a kmart all in the one shop, then times the size by 10. that is wallmart, turns out they sell sportscards!! as theres not alot of nba cards out at the moment all they really had is loose packs of NBA hoops, so i bought a couple for about 90 cents a pack! nothing really in there, my only 'hits' were tyreke evans and Landry fields hoop dreams inserts. i know this product is a throw back to the orginal hoops back in the day. but what an ugly product! its really bad!!
any way onto the Gold Standard. pretty nervous about this, the last 2 boxes i opened turned up nothing PC worthy for me and i would be lucky if i had made back 25-35% of the box price,
so it went a little something like this-
base #/299-
Jason Terry
Christian Laettner
Danilo Gallinari
Jose Calderon Gold Crowns 36/299
Rick Barry Golden Age 202/299
Tim Duncan Gold Nuggets 17/299
Bernard King Gold Mining 164/299
Bernard King Team Patch Auto 47/199
David Thompson Golden Age Auto 86/99 (suprised me by been an on card auto, beautiful looking card.
and then..in this exact order-
Kobe Bryant 24k Jersey on card auto 13/49
wow!!! but then.....
Kobe Bryant Gold Nuggets Patch Auto 12/24
holy crap a dual kobe box!! and heres the kicker, just to add a tiny bit more value to the box (like it needed any more hits!) the last card it spits out just for fun is-
Steve Nash Gold Nuggets Prime 11/25
a nice bonus! im telling you, they got some Kobe Mojo happening over in California! from 2 boxes came a kobe base, a kobe insert #/100 then a kobe jersey auto and patch auto!! i would love to say that this makes up for the theft of my Rondo auto and Kobe Flight team auto....but it really doesnt.
the flight team auto is going to be a bitch to replace.while over there we also went to a couple of games
lakers @ CLippers (amazing atmosphere! was going for the clippers, this is the game where Blake threw down on Pau Gasol and was just rated 9th best play of the season on NBA Action! lakers came up on top in a close finish, and i now have a new found respect for Kobe watching him go to work. he was amazing.)
Heat @ Nets ( it was strange and kind of sad been in New Jersey, and heat fans out numbered Nets fans. i was Shattered my boy D-Wade did not suit up for this. but relivead that Lebron and Bosh was out there, because i knew there was a possibility they could have all been resting that night. for the nets unforunately D-Will and Wallace did not suit up for this game. ill be honest, i expected a potential blowout, but the nets put on a show, led by a Beasting Kris Humphries and also Marshon Brooks, they led most of the game suprisingly. i was getting nervous for a bit! i hate to say it but humphries was an absolute gun in that first half! finished up with 29 points! but thankfully Lebron went on a 4th Quarter rampage and brought the heat back winning the game by 3 and having a 37 point game.
we had great seats, we were the row behind the media desk and only a few metres away from Jay-z and Beyonce!! and the best moment of the game actually happened when the game ended, Lebron went over and said hi to Jay and beyonce, they had there little nephew with them, lebron pulls off his head band, shooters arms, and all other sweat bands his wearing and dressed them on there nephew! it was very cute! and then he takes both shoes off, gets a sharpie from the media desk, signs them both and gives em to the kid as well! the lucky kid was so thrilled! i was very jealous of him!)
Celtics @ Knicks ( i love both these teams, i have a big soft spot for the Celtics, but we had to get behind the home team at madison Square garden! so i wore a melo jersey and my wife A Landry fields jersey and we had alot of fun! boston did not do so well but knicks put on a show! they were shooting 3s like mad men! it was insane! the whole crowd was going nuts! b4 the game my wife asked me ( who the effs Steve Novak?!) believe me...now she knows!!!! and melo..wow....if i had to pick an MVP out of the 3 games i saw, it would go to melo. he was just amazing, and ended up with a triple Double. this was the game where rondo went down for a few minutes, i was looking the wrong way at the time, so i still dont know what happened there, but it was scary, you could see the fear on all the celtics team and staffs faces. but what was amazing was when he did finally get up after a few minutes, madison square garden, packed to capacity of die hard knicks fans stood up and gave rondo a standing ovation. that was really great to see.)
i did take a few picks but my facebook isnt working at the moment so i cant get to them, ill be honest though, there hardly worth sharing, id didnt take many game time photos as i would rather enjoy the moment then stare thru a camera, but no matter how close we sat, unless you have some sick SLR camera with a good zoom, the pictures you take are not going to do any justice at all to how good is was been there in person..
so there you go. thats the basketball portion of my trip! hope you enjoyed the journey!
P.S. omg.....shoes are so cheap in america that its almost not fair.......i had to buy a few pairs and one of my only regrets is i did not buy more!
Nike Lebron 9 Easter Day limited Edition
Nike KD4 (i dont know how limited this colourway is, but only a few stores i went into had them)
Jordan BCT (believe it or not these were too cheap not to buy on special at $45!
and my wife bought two awesome pairs as well-
Nike Kobe VII 'Cheetah'
Nike Kobe VII 'Jellyfish'
the USA are the dream for the basketball addict with all their stuff 
.
& I thought 2 Kobe auto's from 3 box's was good 
