More Upside?

[msink28]

Pick any release of the 2010-2011 year. You have a choice between:

the John Wall rookie auto in the set OR
the complete rookie auto set MINUS John Wall.

You have to take the Wall, right? That's how far ahead I think Wall's cards are right now, which is an absolute nightmare for Panini this year as you would really want multiple players to drive the product. Any thoughts?

 

[rymflaherty]

I think I agree with you - I'd take the Wall.....it's the safe pick at this point.

As for it being a nightmare for Panini - I'm not sure that's the case. All you need is one big rookie to drive a product. The question is simply - is Wall that good?

Just look at 07/08 products - that stuff is gone or absurdly priced primarily because of Durant.
Or I don't think Topps was complaining this past year when they were basically able to print money early in the season due to Strasburg.

So I think one player can drive a product. I just haven't really checked sales of Wall stuff to know if he's in that zone where it is the case. It goes against logic and value in some ways - but I think a lot of the time people are going to be more excited about a product that (for ex.) has one rookie with a $100+ autograph over a product with 8 guys $20-40.

 

[G $MONEY$]

Its great for Panini that Wall is such a force . Everyone wants a piece of Wall RCs, so they will drive all the products by themselves .

Can someone please link an Ebay auction to Walls best RC right now?

 

[msink28]

This reminds me a lot of 2005-2006, when Chris Paul went totally nuts and Deron Williams started very slowly. Wall has went nuts, and Turner is starting slowly.

Good point on the Wall/Durant comparison. I'm not ready to put Wall in that category yet, and if the other rookies don't shape up (i.e. Evan Turner and DeMarcus Cousins) then if you do not pull a Wall you have very little chance to break even, as is the case with 2007-2008 stuff. If Wall's upside is as high as Durant's, then that is fine because every auto you pull is $150+. But if Wall's upside is, say, Tyreke Evans or Derrick Rose, then it's tough for me to see how he can drive an entire year's worth of products. Rose has Westbrook, Eric Gordon, Beasley and Mayo as possible complementary pulls which soften the blow of not pulling Rose and augment the value of the product. It's very possible that none of the rookies in this class (based on what I've seen) have the same upside as those second-tier guys. I believe that it's still really early and that Cousins, Favors, Johnson and Turner will pull it out. But the complete dumping of the other rookies is concerning; Aminu, Udoh, Monroe, Paul George, Ed Davis, Babbitt, Anderson, Bradley, Poindexter, etc. frequently have various copies of auto rookies sell for less than $5; Johnson, Hayward, and Favors can be had frequently for less than $10; Cousins/Turner can be had around $30-40 (or less). The only big surprise has been Eric Bledsoe.

This is perfect if you want to gamble on the upside of some of those guys, particularly Derrick Favors, whose cards are very cheap, and it should be telling that New Jersey isn't interested in moving him. But I want to know how Panini can sell product after product with just John Wall.

Let's put it another way: if National Treasures were to come out today, here is how I see prices for the rookies:

Turner ~ $300-400
Wall ~ $1,500-2,000 (based on the hype right now being true)
Favors ~ $200
Cousins ~ $350
Bledsoe, Johnson ~ $150

I would say that those are very generous estimates for Johnson, Turner, and Cousins. That would turn National Treasures into an outright gamble in my view. I'm not sure that's a good thing for Panini, because you're really going to get back some hideous breaks from a product like that.

The best Wall I could find is:
http://cgi.ebay.com/JOHN-WALL-Pheno...Basketball&hash=item3a60921196#ht_1736wt_1139