With temperatures in the 90s across much of the country, it doesn’t feel like fall but the NBA’s regular season is set to open in less than a month. 2017-18 Hoops basketball, due out October 25, typically marks the start of the basketball card season with the long-running brand offering early rookie cards for what could be a banner crop of newcomers including Lonzo Ball.
Hoops will be sold in a variety of formats, from hobby boxes to “fat packs” containing 30 cards to blaster boxes. Some insert cards will be exclusive to those retail-oriented products.
Hobby boxes will contain 24 packs with eight cards per pack. Each box should contain two autographed cards and each pack will have one insert or parallel.
Hoops, which made its debut back in 1989, is known for its hobby-exclusive Hot Signatures and Red Hot Signatures (numbered to 25) as well as the Rookie versions of those subsets. The Red Hot Signatures cards will numbered to only 25.
With a release date coming more than four months after the close of the 2016-17 season, Hoops can again use 
some of the cards in the set to chronicle the last campaign with its Road to the NBA Finals insert set that photos from the NBA Playoffs and Finals. There’s also a Kevin Durant Finals MVP card that will be numbered to just 99.
Other hobby-exclusive inserts include We Got Next, Back 
Stage Pass, Special Delivery, Courtside and Team Leaders; each insert has Artist Proof (numbered to 25) and Gold (numbered to 10) parallels.
Teal Explosion and Orange Explosion inserts will be Fat Packs exclusives.
Other retail exclusives include: Blue Checkerboard #/75, Red Checkerboard #/15, Great SIGnificance Gold #/10.
Blaster box-only inserts will include Blue and Red parallels #’d/49, Rise N Shine Memorabilia, Rise N Shine Memorabilia Prime (# to no more than 25) ,Rookie Remembrance and Rookie Remembrance Prime (also # to no more than 25).
Kobe Bryant’s career is in the rearview mirror but he’s still under contract to Panini and the company will honor his career with a ten-card subset capturing some of his greatest moments and milestones.
Hobby boxes are around $85-$90. You can see them on eBay here.
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