Panini America Provides Detailed First Look at 2015 Contenders Draft Picks Basketball

In the months since entering the college trading card arena, Panini America has offered brief glimpses of its basketball vision by incorporating college variations of NBA players in both 2014-15 National Treasures Basketball and 2014-15 Flawless Basketball. But later this month, Panini America will unveil its first standalone college-only hoops product with 2015 Contenders Draft Picks Basketball.

Following in the footsteps of Panini America’s successful 2015 Contenders Draft Picks Football, the basketball version honors the biggest stars of the 2015 NBA Draft — as well as the NBA’s biggest current stars in their college uniforms — with a 200-card base set that includes 100 Season Tickets (current NBA stars in their college uniforms), 100 College Tickets (featuring top 2015 draft picks in their college uniforms) and a heavy focus on autographs.

Each hobby box of 2015 Contenders Draft Picks Basketball (eight cards per pack, 24 packs per box) will deliver five autographs, three Class Reunion, three College Connections, two Passports, six Game Day Tickets, 24 School Colors and 24 Old School Colors. The many highlights of the product include . . .

• 2015 Contenders Draft Picks Basketball delivers a roster of recently drafted college players in their college jerseys, including players like Karl-Anthony Towns, D’Angelo Russell, Jahlil Okafor, Willie Cauley-Stein, Justise Winslow and more.
• Chase all five autographed versions of the 100-player College Ticket checklist along with five additional autographed Photo Variation parallels. Find hobby-exclusive Draft Ticket, Playoff Ticket, Championship Ticket and Cracked Ice Ticket parallels.
• The hobby-exclusive School Colors Signatures features the likes of Russell, Towns, Okafor, Cauley-Stein, Myles Turner, Kevon Looney and Frank Kaminsky.
• The all-new International Tickets insert features top 2015 NBA Draft picks such as Emmanuel Mudiay (from the Democratic Republic of Congo) and Kristaps Porzingis (from Latvia). Look for hobby-exclusive Playoff Ticket, Championship Ticket and Cracked Ice Ticket versions.
• Collegiate Connections Signatures features dual-autograph cards honoring some of history’s greatest college basketball players and 2015 NBA draft picks. Look for combos like Kentucky’s Towns and Cauley-Stein, and Anthony Davis and John Wall, Duke’s Jabari Parker and Kyrie Irving and UCLA’s Kevin Love and Russell Westbrook.
• Find autographs of all the top names from the 2015 WNBA Draft including Naismith semi-finalist Brittany Boyd.
• Collect your favorite alumni through Alumni Ink, an autograph insert boasting a checklist of past alumni greats and potential NBA stars such as Parker, Tim Hardaway Jr., Andre Drummond, Aaron Gordon, Jrue Holiday, Julius Randle, Michael Carter-Williams, Nerlens Noel and Victor Oladipo.
• 2015 Contenders Draft Picks Basketball will touch on nostalgia with players like Ben Gordon, Kyle Korver, Julius Randle, Michael Kidd-Gilchrist, Richard Jefferson, Roy Hibbert and more.

We’ll have plenty more on 2015 Contenders Draft Picks Basketball in the coming weeks right here on The Knight’s Lance. But for now, check out this first extended sneak peek:

All information is accurate at the time of posting – content is subject to change and approval. Card images are solely for the purpose of design display. Actual images used on cards to be determined.